The land of veiled women; some wandering in Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco

Jy^.M^lffi^Bi- ■ < j'-

loo
!cr;

= 0)

00

THE LAND OF
/EILED WOMEN

JOHN FOSTER
FRASER

J

■^■4L_

I

^

THE
LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

Other Books by
JOHN FOSTER FRASER

PANAMA AND WHAT IT MEANS

AUSTRALIA: THE MAKING OF
A NATION

LIFE'S CONTRASTS

QUAINT SUBJECTS OF THE
KING

CANADA AS IT IS

AMERICA AT WORK

THE REAL SIBERIA

PICTURES FROM THE BALKANS

ROUND THE WORLD ON A
WHEEL

Cassell is" Co., Ltd., London, i^eiv York,
Toronto and Meloourne

A YOUNG ARAB COUPLE.

Photograph by Lehnert & Lnndiock, Tunis.

The Land of Veiled

Women : Some Wanderings
in Algeria, Tunisia &^ Morocco

BY

JOHN FOSTER FRASER

PFilh Four Illustrations

CASSELL AND COMPANY. LTD
London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne

1913

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

CONTENTS

[7^

CHAPTER

1. Bou-Saada : The Place of Happiness .

2. The Dancing Girls of the Ouled NaIl

3. The Desert ....

4. Under the Tents

5. The City of Beautiful Children

6. Arab Weddings and Home Life

7. Algiers in Ramadan

8. An Arabian Day Entertainment

9. By Diligence to the South .

10. The End of Ramadan .

11. Biskra the Spoilt

12. Ruins, Roman and Otherwise

13. Monsieur Talks about Himself

14. Vignettes ....

15. Among the Kabyles

16. The Kaleidoscope of Tunis .

17. The Souk-el- Attarine .

18. The Holy City of Africa

1

14

24

34

47

73

84

96

107

118

128

139

152

162

178

188

199

203

VI

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

19. Things about Tunisia .

20. The Foreign Legion

21. At the Back of Morocco

22. Morocco

23. Tanqiek

220
231
243
254
269

LIST OF PLATES

A Young Arab Couple .... Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

The Way Fashionable Ladies Travel ... 30
"Allah is Great I There is no God but Allah I " 126
Typical Tunisian Jewesses 188

THE LAND OF VEILED
WOMEN

CHAPTER I

BOU-SAADA : THE PLACE OF HAPPINESS

For days I crossed a land of drifting sand and
scorching sun, and now I have reached the oasis,
where water gurgles and palm-trees grow and the
Ai-ab town of Bou-Saada rests by a river.

Bou-Saada means the Place of Happiness — and
happy it is to the travel-racked man to let aching
eyes fall on the green of the gardens.

It is a mother -earth town of the drab tint of
sun-baked bricks, the houses square-faced but bulg-
ing, and scarcely a window in the place. The thin,
shadow-soaked streets are drunken. A bit of the
town the French officials and traders have taken to
themselves and made liveable. The native town is,
in design and appearance, much what a child of four
would make if given a barrow-load of mud !

But the light— the light— the beautiful light ! The
blue Italian sky is leaden to this sky. A few artists
know of Bou-Saada, and come for the light. I have
seen a painter struggle for an hour to get a blue
approaching the blue of the heaven hereabouts. He
failed. I have seen a man trying to get the shimmer
of the sands, and, good artist though he be, the

B

2 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

picture was a daub when the real thing lay before
one. It is a light that burns out all detail in a land-
scape. It produces grand splashes of colour. It
makes a mud- wall picturesque.

Yes, the light ! No cloud, no misty film drawn
from dew, puts a veil before the eyes. The red
ochreish desert and the red heave of low barren hills
make the world a place of light and blazing silence.
The sun burns with the scorch of a furnace.

The glare has something strange in it. It is a
splash of light, but moving, undulating. As you walk
you are conscious of the heat-wave rising and swelling
and falling and rising like a sea in calm. It is a glare
which eats up all detail. There are innumerable tufts
of dull sage brush on the desert, and you see them
distinctly, and yet the gaze feels only the limitless,
featuieless expanse. The Arab toTi^Ti is a jumble of
rickety houses, but you know only of the brown
symmetry of the mass. There are splotchy, whitened
walls — and only the aching white is seen. The
gardens, the palm trees, the dark cypress, the fig-
trees are blends of green — yet you only see they are
cool shades in the landscape. The colours of the
market-place, the fruit-stalls, the piles of gaudy
cotton stuffs, the women veiled and shrouded in
white, the swarthy black-whiskered Arabs in flowing
robes of white — many tones, but in this wealth of
effulgent light, all sharp, distinct, radiant with the
glamour of the Orient.

Here we are on the edge of the Saharan desert.
Long-lined camel caravans come up from the south.
The features of most men are almost European ; but
there are others with the black face, squat noses and

BOU-SAADA 3

thick lips of regions near the Equator. The women of
the town look short, so swathed are they. Their
white trousers are bundles of crumpled pleats, and
they walk with a side-swing of the hips which is
sensuous. A simple white shawl hangs from the head
to the shoulders. The veil, or hoik, is not fastened.
It is clasped between the fingers and thumb of each
hand and, stretched, is held up before the face — s.
way which I have not seen elsewhere.

But in this town of nearly 7,000 persons there
are others besides Mohammedans. There are 600
Jews. The Jewish women are unveiled. And one
marks that the African Jew has lost the facial
characteristics of others who came out of Judea.
Their features are more refined. The Jews dress
much like the town Arab : baggy breeches, coloured
zouave jacket and turban. Their women-folk are
given to lavish finery.

The Jews are the chief merchants. Also, they are
the makers of gold ornaments for all the Moslem
wom.en of the desert. A woman's worldly possessions
are her gold decorations. We will seek rest in a
goldsmith's shop, and there sip Ai'ab tea sweetened
and flavoured with mint. It is not much of a shop,
a sort of whitewashed cupboard. The artificer
crouches on the ground. He has a tiny furnace and
a tiny anvil, and tiny tools lie about. Near by is a
heavily padlocked box where he keeps his gold.
Decorations are made to order. None are manu-
factured for possible prospective buyers who may be
looking round for a present. Once a Moslem woman
becomes possessed of jewellery she never parts with
it, except in a case of extreme want. No Moslem

4 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

ever wears imitation jewellery ; it is always pure
gold. The Bou-Saada women have a peculiar brooch.
It is a large disc of gold with a finger-sized hole in
the centre and all round are tiny buttons of gold,
with a slender curving thread of gold running between.
The design becomes conventional, and though there
is variety in size and shape, there is no departure
from the set pattern. Necklets are generally looped
gold coins. Sometimes they form miniature breast-
plates ; dozens of gold coins are fastened together
with clasps, and as they are of all European countries,
and all periods, the women are often a kind of hob-
bling numismatic museum. Ear-rings are thick gold
hoops, as large as your hand, and are weighted with
gold beads. They are worn, not through the lobe of
the ear, but rest upon the top of the ear. Bangles
are many, and of gold. If there is a silver ornament
it is a heavy anklet.

These things you do not see in the streets, but
only in the houses. The Mohammedan hides his
women-folk from strange male eyes. He does not
trust his brother man. But there is less of this
shielding in the case of Europeans than in the case
of Moslems, for it is known that we are used to
meeting women other than our relatives. One day
a Mohammedan came into my little hotel with his
wife. She was closely veiled — nothing of her face
could be seen, but a pair of large, lustrous, brown
eyes, with pigment accentuating the moon arches of
the eyebrows and pencilled kohl on the rims of the
eyes. Kohl has the effect of increasing the beauty
of the eye. But it has a real use : the eye is not so
much affected by the glowing sunshine. When the

BOUSAADA 5

Arab and I got into conversation, the wife loosened
her veil and threw it over her shoulder and revealed
a sweet face. She played with her little boy. Pre-
sently another Ai'ab entered the room, and at once
she re-affixed her veil. For a young woman to show
her face in public is the height of impropriety in the
mind of a Mohammedan ; but it is known that the
European has no such idea.

It was through a French artist friend that I first
became acquainted with the ladies of an Arab house-
hold— a widow, whose husband had visited Europe,
and her two daughters. A heavy door, a dark
passage and a sort of courtyard open to the sky,
and then a broad balcony divided by partitions —
sleeping places. The walls were mud-brown, and
there was no furniture or decoration except carpets.
The fireplace was of the most primitive kind, but
the burning of Juniper-wood filled the air with strong
aromatic odour. The lady, inclined to be stout, was
in black ; she wore a crimson turban, and from
beneath this bulged a mass of glossy black hair.
Throat, ears, arms, fingers were heavy with gold
jewellery. Between the eyes was a tattooed cross,
and on each cheek was a cross tattooed. Most Ai'ab
women in the south of Algeria have these marks,
and there are folk who tell you that, though its mean-
ing has now gone, it was the sign whereby, in former
days, when Christianity swept like a wave over
Northern Africa, the native Christians proclaimed
their faith.

The daughters, two modest slips of big-eyed girls,
wore caps of red. Their loose-fitting clothes of apple-
green suggested they had been copied from a Kate

6 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

Greenaway picture. They were delicate, pale, and
pretty girls, and the mother said the elder, aged
thirteen, was about to be veiled, and would be
married in a few months. To be veiled means passing
from girlhood to womanhood, and then the French
artist could no longer introduce her into his pictures
of Arab life, for the future husband, twice her age,
would not think it proper. Ordinarily, the Moham-
medan man never looks upon the face of his wife
till the bridal night. But when the marriage takes
place soon after a girl has been veiled, it is not at
all unlikely he may not only have seen her, but
have spoken to her. It may be because of her beauty
as a child that he wants to marry her. It is the girl
who has no choice, if her parents agree.

Our hostess clapped her hands and negress servants
appeared from the gloom and produced the burnished
pot in which coffee was boiled, and the girls brought
us the cups — silver, and no larger than egg-cups — and
held them out with both hands. We lounged on the
thick Bou-Saada rugs, sipped our coffee, puffed cigarettes,
and asked the girls if they would like to hve in Europe ?
They said they would be afraid, because there were no
Arabs there.

Tlie Arab girls of high rank are veiled at six years
of age. Besides the cross, each tribe has its distin-
guishing tattoo mark, generally on the forehead, and
thus people of the same tribe may easily recognise each
other. South, at Laghouat, the women wear a costume
that is picturesque though ragged. It is a kind of
ancient peplum, open at the sides and fastened on the
shoulders by huge silver hooks. On the head is some-
thhig like a gold tiara, and from just below the eyes

BOU-SAADA 7

falls a long veil. In many places the women cannot
be said to wear clothes — in the ordinary sense. They
cannot use the needle, and their robe or melhafa is a
piece of stuff like a big blanket, and this they cleverly,
rather than gracefully, wrap themselves in. The one
fastening is a long-pinned, triangular brooch of silver
set with coloured stones, usually turquoise.

The women of the Sahara are all good-looking,
and every one carries a little mirror, which she
consults whenever she applies the kohl to eyes and
eyebrows.

In North Algeria it is often cold in winter — there is
even snow. Many of the natives wear the same clothing
summer and winter. Sometimes it is thin cotton,
sometimes it is silk, and sometimes soft-textured wool
The number of yards used would startle a Court milliner.
The head and body covering is frequently of material
six yards long by two yards wide. The pantaloons,
baggy and bunched, are sometimes made with eighteen
yards of stuff.

With only the eyes visible — dreamy, beautiful brown
eyes — there is always an air of delightful mystery about
an Arab woman. Who is she, and is the rest of her
face in harmony with those love-deep eyes ? Is she
young, or is she old ? You cannot tell. Behind the
veil is the charm of the unknown. If you drop from the
realm of poetry to the matter-of-fact, you may take
it that the veiled woman with enormous pantaloons is
young. With gi'owing age comes the habit of wearing
a less voluminous garment, and it gets less voluminous
the older the woman gets. Nearly always the costume
of the street is white — ^nothing but white. If any other
colour is worn — ^black, dark blue, yellow or brown —

8 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

the whole garb is of one colour, with not even a
variation in shade.

liife goes very easily in Bou-Saada. Games and
gossip — these occupy most of the time of the women
folk. The poorer people weave carpets. Tliose who
are better off do not read because they cannot, and
there is Uttle skill with the needle. Scandals and
stories, which would shock the ears of a more cultured
people, occupy much of the day. And, like all ignorant
people, they are superstitious and ready to accept
anything of marvel that is brought to them.

Do you know of the achat-el-fal — the meal of fate ?
On a Thursday one of the young women of the family
puts rouge and kohl on her left cheek. With her left
hand she makes a large dish of kous-kous, a mealy dish
which is nutritious and strangely fattening to those who
take no exercise. A girl, on reaching the marriageable
age is stuffed with kous-koiis, and balls of flour, and
honey and butter flavoured with aniseed, and the fatter
she is the more pleased her future husband will be
with her. The woman with the decorated left cheek,
carrying her veil eye-high, proceeds through the city
to seven baths, seven mills, and seven streams, and in
a whisper invites the djinns to supper.

Midnight : the harem Ut only with a few blackened
lamps : the women of the household sitting round
waiting their ghostly guests.

The lights are extinguished. All is silence. The
young woman moves stealthily to the door and opens
it. The invisible spirits are supposed to enter. Another
long silence. Then the lamps are lit and the women
climb into the night on the roof-top. Fires are prepared.
Each woman takes a piece of koiis-kom dough and

BOU-SAADA 9

fashions it roughly to represent herself. She throws
it into the flame, and from the way the model
behaves in the fii'e she is able to imagine what her
destiny will be.

Kept in seclusion, languorous and without exercise,
it is natural that the thought and life of an Arab woman
should be sensuous. Flat roof adjoins flat roof, and it
is possible to journey over half Bou-Saada by the roofs.
An unforgivable offence is for a man to look from his
own roof upon the roof of his neighbour, for here the
ladies gather and sit unveiled. But human nature is
the same in Bou-Saada as elsewhere, and sometimes
glances are exchanged. The very difficulty of an
intrigue makes it all the more a ravishing pastime with
the passionate Arab, and the woman, trained from her
earliest gu'lhood on lascivious stories and amorous
poetry, runs risks. Now, when a husband returns home
and notices a pair of red shppers before the door of his
wife's room, he knows that a lady visitor is within and
he must not enter. Tlierefore, the placing of red slippers
at the door is one of the devices adopted by women
who would deceive their spouses. Indeed, you hear
stories of lovers visiting their ladies dressed as women,
so easy is the disguise if the man is not too tall and
adopts the waddling walk of the Arab woman. Should
the husband suspect — especially if the visitor departs
by the house-top, which is not miusual — he watches,
or sets a spy to work. Then some night an Arab is
mysteriously murdered in one of the dark alleys.

The light blinds and the eyes ache. Yet let us idle
an hour in the market-place. Sheep are being driven
in, skimiy, lop-eared sheep, and in every flock are goats,
for tlieir presence is supposed to keep the sheep

B*

10 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

healthy. The sheep are herded and feet are tied together
to prevent a scamper. Buyers are about, and bargaining
is conducted in high-pitched voices. An Arab seizes
a sheep, hfts it in his arms and conjectures its weight.
The seller asks a sum. The prospective buyer laughs
at him and offers much less. The seller waves him
away. But they begin shrieking at one another ; the
seller lowers his price, the buyer increases his. The
seller says the sheep is the heaviest in his flock. The
buyer retorts it is nothing but a bag of bones. After
much haggling, the deal is made. The butcher hurries
the sheep away and cuts its throat. Whilst the animal
is panting to death, a knife cuts a small hole at the
lower end of one of the legs. The butcher puts his
mouth to the aperture and blows hard. Another man
beats the skin with a stick ; so it is easily loosened and
the skin is removed.

MiUions of flies buzz romid a butcher's shop.
Often they are so thick that you cannot see the
mutton for flies. The Arab does not mind. When
the mutton is chopped up, hundreds of flies go to
their death.

Under some trees is a crowd. A wandering story-
teller has a considerable audience. He is a large man,
very dark, and is wearing a blue burnous and a white
turban. He is seated on one side of a cu'cle of listeners,
also seated, whilst standing around are a couple of
hundred listeners. It is a di'owsy afternoon, and the
story-teller's voice can be easily heard. He turns his
head, addressing different sections of his audience, and
the only dramatic gesture is a movement of the hands.
Attention is rapt. Now and then a little rattle of
laughter runs round, and those who are pleased throw

BOU-SAADA II

coins into the circle. The story-teller takes no notice,
but a lad in his employ quickly picks up each offering.

I would visit the Oued — the little river which is the
mother of Bou-Saada. Beautiful is water in a parched,
verdureless land. Happy is running water to the sight
of blistered eyes. Is there any music in the world so
sweet to the ears of the man from the desert as the
prattle of a rivulet ? It is the river which gives nutri-
ment to the palm-trees, causes luxuriant foliage and
provides shade. There is no shade in the desert, and
to sit in the shadow of a palm, after a long Journey
over the hot sands, is like resting within the portals of
Paradise.

A tall Arab directs me the shortest way to the river.
He does not point, for Arabs never point ; he turns
his head to a drooping lane, sends his gaze down it,
and then raises his chin as much as to observe, " That
way."

It is the lull of the afternoon, and a luscious balm
is in the air. Before the cafes Ai-ab idlers are playing
dominoes. In the shadow of an arch reclines an Arab
on a rush mat. He is old and yellow-skinned. His
robes are scrupulously clean, and he is wearing smoked
glasses. It is the latter oddity which induces me to
inquu'e who he is. A marabout — a holy man. He is
wealthy, and lives a day's journey away. Occasionally
he comes into Bou-Saada, so that good Mohammedans
may give him money. It is merit to have the privilege
to give him money.

A long-shanked and sparsely clad man goes by with

a swollen goat-skin slung behind him. He is rattUng

two brass cups and cries his wares. He has sweet, cool

.water to sell. The thick, dusty road seems to breathe

12 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

back the heat of the sun chokingly. Here is a gi'oup
of cameleers, broad, muscular and hairy men.
Beneath their white burnouses are stout brown legs,
and their feet are in loose-fitting shoes. They walk
flat-footed, telling they are much accustomed to
trudging over soft earth. Their dark faces have been
made darker still by the sun, and their beards are
short and black and silky. Round the cowl of white
which covers head, brow and neck are twisted many
cords of camel-hair t^^^ne. Western people cover
themselves to keep out the cold; the Oriental covers
himself to resist the heat. On a white-hot, gasping
day I have kno^^^l Arabs t"wist thick woollen burnouses
over head and shoulders.

Some aristocratic Arabs — you tell that by the
quality of their raiment, the richness of their jackets,
the gold buttons and the gold lace upon their sleeves
— are wearing French shoes and socks. Kaids,
or chiefs of villages, they have been to the Bureau
Arabe, the administrative office from which the French
rule the natives. One man, carrying himself nobly,
the eye clear but almond-shaped, the nose Semitic, the
mouth full and voluptuous, has a French Order upon
his burnous. The French conciliate the Arab chiefs
with cheap decorations — and the Arab chiefs are very
proud. An Arab on a haughty stallion goes scampering
by. The man is wearing a blue burnous ; he is in
French employ.

Tramp, tramp, tramp ! In a cloud of dust a body
of French soldiers come marching along. Bronze, lithe
men in peaked caps. Their shirts are white, and round
their waists are \ATapped long sashes of indigo wool,
a necessary precaution against climatic ailments. They

BOU-SAADA 13

are wearing bro^\Ti holland trousers, clasped at the
bottom with short leggings. They are the represen-
tatives of France. Yonder, on a high knuckle of rock,
is the fortress, straight-walled, stout gated, buttressed,
with long slits in the walls, from which the nozzles of
guns would peep if there were an Arab uprising and
the R'ench obliged to seek shelter.

Do^vn and up are curvetting mud lanes with mud
walls on either side. Gay children are at play. Bundles
of white — women — come along, and then stand with
faces to the wall whilst the unbeliever passes. But
beyond open doorways, and in the gloom, unveiled
women can be seen throwing the shuttle in the slow
construction of an Arab carpet, or in the weaving of
a haik.

The wide, winding river is a jumble of boulders.
Zig-zag comes the stream, flowing hurriedly where
narrowed, and, where the land indents, making a broad
and sluggish pool. Where the water runs quick women
are kneeling and washing clothes.

Above the banks are high walls, and beyond the
walls is riotous vegetation — crowded, dank, yielding the
odour of dampness. Oleanders and pomegranates throng
together. With almost sylph-hke slenderness the palm-
trees rise, and the fronds of their bushy heads fling deep
shade. There is the slumbrous hush of hot afternoon
in the air.

CHAPTER II

THE DANCING GIRLS OF THE OULED NAIL

There is the plaintive wail of the Ai-ab flute and the
rhythmic throb of the drum. It is night. Still the
crescent moon is below the rim of the desert. It is a
velvety, peachy darkness. The stars glitter through a
sky that is purple over deep blue. And the aii- from
the Little Sahara comt j to the cheek like the breath of
a woman who is fond.

Now the blind of the day is draT\Ti and the still night
of Africa hangs over the desert. The lilt of the music
lifts and falls. White-robed Arabs flit by like ghosts
in a city of the dead.

A French artist, living in an Arab house, has
arranged a delight of the Orient— a dance. The dancers
are ghls belonging to the Ouled Nail tribe, who hve
on the Sahara, far south. It is a poor, bleached region,
but the young women are good to look upon. So,
through a length of generations, these girls of the Ouled
Nail come to oases hke Bou-Saada and Biski-a, which
are meeting-places of caravans that trail in after many
days' jom-ney, and they dance and sing and please the
Ai-abs, and become rich, and go back to then- tribe and
marr>% and the rest is lost in the haze and mystery of
the Sahara.

The tribes of the Ouled Nail are marahoutique,
descended fi'om a saint. All the ghls traffic theu-

14

DANCING GIRLS OF THE OULED NAIL 15

charms in the towns bordering the desert. The free
love by which they earn money is not considered any
dishonour ; being marabout, they are respected by
other tribes. Among the Arabs, where the men easily
outnumber the women and polygamy only makes the
disproportion greater, the occupation of the girls of the
Ouled Nail has become a religious rite in the eyes of
Mohammedans. The men are effeminate, and the girls
are sent at an early age to the towns to follow the tribal
profession.

They are tall and willowj^ have a pink glow in their
brown cheeks, are full of laughter and light-heartedness.
Their eyes sparkle and their teeth gleam. When
dancing, their supple hips yield to the ecstasy of poetic
motion. The Arabs love the dance of the Ouled Nail.
Money is thro^vn to them. Perfumes are poured upon
their fingers.

The dance is on the roof, white-plastered, and the
thick mud parapet is white also. Thi'ough the balm of
the air other Arab houses silliouette against the stars.
The kouba, or dome of a mosque, stands like a sentinel.

The French artist, %vith the instinct of his race, has
provided an Eastern setting. A carpet is stretched,
and here squat the Ouled Nails, amazingly arrayed.
In the half hght of filmy lanterns they look like strange
creatures who have come from another world.

Two Arabs lean against the wall, their dress indis-
tinguishable from the wall, but their dun faces clearly
marked ; they are playing the flute and drum. The
tune is sad ; it is a drone. It seems like melancholy
dra%vn out of the night and distilled in the pathos of
liquid poetry. All Oriental music is in this minor,

i6 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

uncanny key, as though the air had once been sprightly
and happy, but is now mournful and yearning for the
buried past.

A girl is dancing slowly and vnth long curves — like
a skater making turns on the ice. Her features are dead
and her body still. Her arms are outstretched, and her
hands and fingers are moving as though playing some
invisible instrument. There is the shuffle of her sandalled
feet on the roughness of the roof — shush — shush, si-si —
shush — shush !

Tum-tum, tim-tim-tum, tam, goes the drum. The
flute player throws back his head, and the music wails.

Her name is Ramleya : the Daughter of the Sand.

She is the pure Semitic type of Arab. She is taU,
and of alluring leaimess, and her face is dark and long.
Her eyes, kohl-smudged, are the shape of almonds. Her
nose is beautifully aquiline, and has neat little protrud-
ing nostrils. Her lips are sensitive and sensuous, full,
passionate. The eyes are closed as she glides, and her
face is as impassive as that of a mummy.

Romance has laid hold of me to-night. For, as I sit
and play with my cigarette, and watch the scene through
the hanging fumes, I fancy some daughter of the ages
has risen, and, whilst slumber still holds her, is
dancing herself into life again. Her dark skin, the
black of the kohl, the tattoo-marks of her tribe on the
forehead, on her cheek, on her chin, together with the
graceful posturing, creates a feeling that the thing is
not quite earthly, that I have been reading Rider
Haggard, and all tliis is the figment of a dream. It is
weird.

Ramleya is wearing a bunched head-dress of black,
on which spring sprays of barbaric gold ornaments.

DANCING GIRLS OF THE OULED NAIL 17

Heavy coils of night-bin ck hair fall below the ears, are
entwined with plaits of black wool, and these curve to
the chin. Great ear-rings, heavy Avith gold, press
through the tresses. About the neck are clustered in-
numerable gold coins, strained together. Her cloak is
black but for a rib of gold straight down the back. Her
dress is of soft, sheeny green lace spangled with gold.
Her arms are entwined with gold. Her hands are gentle,
and her long, tapering fingers, with nails henna-dyed,
are heavy with gold.

Yes, all real gold. The Ouled Nail girl wears nothing
but gold, chiefly coins. They indicate her prosperity ;
they are her fortune ; they will make her the envy
of the ghls of her tribe when she goes back to the
Sahara.

Black and gold is the scheme of colour of the
Daughter of the Sand. That mask-face, eyelids down,
wreathed in raven hair, whilst she dances with twitching-
fingered, outstretched hands — as though seeking for
someone in the dark — is eerie.

The night air is fragrant. One's senses yield to the
intoxication of the occasion. The flute sings shrill, and
a stronger beat is given to the drum.

Ramleya stands mth her back close to her sister
Nails. She shivers and her jewellery tinkles. Her eyes
half open. With a wriggle of the body she shuffles for-
ward. A languorous, weary, lovesick light comes into
her eyes as she sadly smiles. Her arms drop tired to her
sides, and suc gives a half-droop backwards. Her dance
is over.

The girls and the Arab servants of the house break
into lofty falsetto cries of " Hoorol-lo-lo-lo ! " which
reminds me of the shouts of Red Indians in a Buffalo

i8 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

Bill show. There are sweetmeats and lemonade for
the dancers. There are coffee and cigai'ettes for
the guests.

Now the slip of the waning moon soars above the
wide -spreading fronds of the palm-trees and suffuses
Bou-Saada with light that is silvery. It falls on the
group of Ouled Nails, a wizened old dame, aunt to
one of the girls — most convenient of relationships —
several children, an Arab girl in red — ^pretty, a model
to an artist, who has pleaded that she might see the
dance — ^and a Jewess, plump and with fine eyes, in
white, but wearing a cloak of gold-shot crimson, whilst
from her breasts to her hair she is laden with cumbrous
gold jewellery, worth hundreds of pounds. A friend
whispers into my ear she has been busy all the after-
noon borrowing this finery from her friends in the
Jewish quarter of Bou-Saada, so that in gorgeousness
she may outdo the Ouled Nail girls. She does. She
is Sultana. But her radiance is that of a girl in a panto-
mime. She lacks the calm, the dignity, the naive
impressiveness of the Arab girls.

A clapping of hands. The flute is Uvely and the
drum sounds ardent.

Zohra has jumped forward, and is in an ecstasy of
motion. She is the favourite of the party. She is
young and the colour of a ripe peach shines through tlie
brown of her face. Her eyes are big and wicked ; her
lips pout. When she laughs, she shows teeth that are
perfect. She is always laughing, and then half turns
her head as though shy.

A ravishing little creature is Zohra. She is lithe,
seductively slim, and animated, and her style is that
of abandonment. She skips sideways and manoeuvres

DANCING GIRLS OF THE OULED NAIL 19

adroitly with her veil. She shakes her shoulders,
edges in front of us, and whilst giving a lascivious
sway of the tender hips, holds her veil before her
eyes as though ashamed of what she is doing. She is
fi'isky. All the Arabs clap hands and beat time as
she dances.

The head-dress is like that of the other Ouled Nails :
masses of black studded with gold. But her drapery is
of mauve, of soft material, so that every movement of
the lissom body may be seen.

Suddenly comes a twist in the music and the dance.
There is melody suggestive of a stately gavotte. Zohra
gives a curve of the arm. She stands. Veiled. Then
she moves. She is not dancing. She is showing the
suppleness, the rhythm of her arms and her tiny wrists,
and the shape of her dainty fingers. She undulates,
her little breasts pant, but the movement of the feet is
hidden. All you see — all you want to see — is the coiling,
the serpentining of the arms. It is a study in curves,
charming in its gentleness.

Crash ! The drummer and the flautist whack then*
mightiest and blow their hardest.

For Zohra has thrown aside her veil. She laughs.
And the moonbeams glint on her teeth. She swishes
forward with a houp-la 1 devil-may-care, this-is-the-wr>y-
to-do-it gesture, springs, gyrates, heaves her bosom.
Her eyes flash passionate fire as she jumps from side
to side.

She is a child of Nature. She is happy in her danc-
ing, this little Arab gul, who has lived all her life in
the tents of the desert. Bou-Saada is the only town
she has ever seen. She cannot read. She knows nothing
of the great world beyond the sands. She can just dance.

20 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

Lemonade for Zohra — ^and she drinks the contents
of two bottles like the little guzzler she is. Sweetmeats
for Zohra — and she munches them with greedy delight.
Cigarettes for Zohra — ^and she sits by me and puffs and
blows in the moonlight like a merry imp.

One of the painter men calls on a model, Nakhla
(Daughter of the Date-Palm), to dance. She is a
Bou-Saada girl, about thirteen, and when she is a
little older she will be veiled like all strictly reared
Mohammedan girls, and will not show her face after
the manner of the Ouled Nail damsels. She is of
an attractive Arab type, and one of these days her
piquant Arab countenance will peep out from canvases
in Paris Salons, and visitors will say : " That is a pretty
Arab girl."

But then the Daughter of the Date-Palm will be
veiled and married and kept to the harem, and will
not be allowed to have her portrait painted by artists
who come from the white man's land.

Poor little Nakhla !

She does not like to dance, but she will sing. So
Nakhla raises her sweet treble. voice in an Arab love
song.

" The woman I have seen, she whom I love.
She Is like the star of heaven.
* * * * *

" Red, red lips, and eyes so black,
And pearl-white teeth — the sound
Of her sweet voice enraptures me.
Making me drunken with love."

We beat the palms of our hands and cry for more.
Nakhla waits, and then smgs " Ya Asafi ! "—-(Regrets.)
Where had this child gathered the song ? It recalls

DANCING GIRLS OF THE OULED NAfL 21

the days when the Moors were masters of Spain. It
has journeyed like an ebb-tide of music across the hills
and the sands of Africa : —

" How I regret the past that already Is flown away.
Ah I Allah I The Days of joy and pleasure, the evenings
full of sweetness I Ah 1 Dwellings of Andalusia that we
have left ; alas I I will forget you never 1

" No longer for us are the nights of Granada, city of
delights. Ah ! Allah I It is there that I have known
the women who have taught me to love. Ah I Dwell-
ings of Andalusia that we have left, I will forget you
never 1

" Ah ! Allah I I pray Thee of Thy goodness that
Thou shouldst suffer me to see once more that blessed
abode. Ah I Allah 1 Knit me again with my desire,
and make me to enjoy tranquillity. Ah 1 Dwellings of
Andalusia that we have left, I will forget you never 1 "

We are all quiet — Arabs, French artist, English
writing-man — as we sit on the roof-top and see the
moon-bathed desert beyond the palms, and we listen
to Nahkla. It is very sad, and at the end of each verse
is a sigh as though the sought one would never be
found.

Soon another song arises, a familiar song in Algeria,
and one which is often heard in the cafes. It is the
" Sally in our AUey " of the Arabs : —

" Ah I If only I could still keep young, I would plant for
thee a garden of limes and pomegranates.

If thou camest, I would take thee to my home ; I should
be the lover and thou the loved-one.

I met her to-day at the garden gate ; her figure was a
bamboo for gracefulness, her cheek a poppy.

*' I met her to-day at Souk-el-louh [the wood-market]
Her handkerchief was in her hand ; she was weeping and
sobbing.

22 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

" I met her to-day at the Souk-el-djema [the Friday

market],
Her handkerchief was in her hand ; she was weeping and

sliedding tears.

" I met her to-day at the Souk Sabat-er-ryh [the top of

the Street of the Gazelle],
I asked what was the matter. They said : She is his dear

love.

" Ah ! If only I took thee to my house, queen of the
gazelles, I would tell thee my desire."

We lounge and breatlie in deeply the beauty of
the night. The East has wooed us. The East is
always calling, and the man who has come, comes
again.

The pure air of the desert, a drowse in the shadow
of the palms, a little bread, a little wine, girls to dance
and to sing — ^well, I have no doubt that in a clammy,
over-coat and fire-place country it would all seem a
pulseless existence. But here, in Africa, in an Arab
town, the ordinary man does not want more.

Next comes Semla, in green and silver. Semla looks
cross, and she is not much of a dancer. But in the
jiggle-jaggle of the abdomen, which is quite a classic
performance amongst Eastern nations, Semla is famous.
My taste is possibly decrepit, but though I have seen
this stomach dance in many lands I do not find it enter-
taining. Some people like it because it is improper ;
I dislike it for no other reason than that it bores me.
It is the sort of abdominal acrobatism that interests
silly young fellows and very old men.

The moon begins to drop. Several of the lanterns
have spluttered and gone out. A chill nip comes into
the clear air. We beat our hands. The entertainmenit

DANCING GIRLS OF THE OULED NAIL 23

is finished, and we make our presents. Then, with
lanterns in our hands we show the ladies through
the Arab house to the silent street. Salaams, and they
have gone.

Clang ! clang ! clang 1 and the French clock gives
midnight. We climb back to the roof, and by the light
of a quiet-flamed candle, we smoke our pipes and talk
about the life on the desert among the Ouled Nails.

CHAPTER III

THE DESERT

The evening has now come, and the desert oozes heat
like an oven on the cool. I am writmg by candle-
light in the corner of an Arab rest-house. Twenty-
yards away my Arab servants are sitting round a gusty,
flaring fire of desert grass and watching the cooking of
kous-kous ; the light falls on their white clothing and
bronzed limbs and black beards. The camels are crouch-
ing close by, munching and growling. Far away is the
rise and fall of hght — like the signal of a lighthouse ;
but I know it is a distant camp fire.

The desert is a great silence. There is no moon,
but the sky is dusted with stars.

All day we have been slowly surging, surging, across
the desert, and our speed has never been more than
three miles an hour. The sun hit us, scorching hot.
The lifeless air warmed, and there was no pleasure in
breathing. The sands, studded with sage brush, sucked
in the heat and gasped it out again.

A few ochreish hills, an occasional gully choked
with rubble, where once a river flowed, a waste of hard,
grey sand with tiny tufts of rank gi-ass — that over and
over again through the baking hours — such was the
scenery.

The first few hours of the surge-surge of the camel
is passable. But monotony comes; then weariness.

24

THE DESERT 25

Yesterday I thought of the romance of caravaning on
the Sahara. To-day there is no romance. I am an
aching-limbed mortal, high perched on the hump of a
camel, and the glare hurts my eyes, and the heat
burns me, and my clothing is uncomfortable, and a
mighty thirst lays hold of me.

I call my wants. The caravan is stopped. From
what looks like the carcase of a goat slung by the side
of a camel water is brought. It is muddy !

It is beautiful to drink. But the thirst does not go.
I begin to wonder if ever I shall have a glass of cold
water again. My mouth becomes sticky. I suck, but
the saliva refuses to run. The roof of my mouth is
like a glue-pot, and my tongue cleaves to it, and I pull
it away with a dry wrench. I feel a glutinous moisture
gathering in my throat. I try to spit it out, but I
have no saliva with which to spit. I try to swallow
it, but it feels as though a pebble has got in the way.
My lips smart as though they were cracked and full of
vinegar. My eyes ache with the sun glare and pain
with the sand that has got into them.

The region is waterless. The land is accursed.
Surge-surge we go — those slowly dragging three miles an
hour, and the sun is high and the rest-place still far
off. I deliberately sink into a sluggish state. The
scrubby sage brush, the sand, the reddish-fired hills,
the burn of the sun, are all full of cruelty. The camels
surge-surge at an unconcerned, level pace. Some of
my attendants are riding, others are tramping. We are
all silent.

Allah created four angels to rule over the four kinds
of desert. The first was the Chebka, cold and harsh —
and the kind of desert known as the Chebka is dreary

26 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

and stony, and the valleys are full of evil spirits. The
second was the angel of the Hamedan, a thoughtless
angel who paid no heed to shade or water, and so the
desert called the Hamedan consists of great barren
rocks with no water. The third was the angel of the
Gaci, who was loved by a woman who danced before
him on the desert, and as she laughingly chsappeared,
she scattered precious stones and fruits from Paradise,
pomegranates and dates ; so the desert where there
are oases is called Gaci. The fourth was the angel of
the Erg — a woman angel, the other three were men —
who drove the shifting sand before her, and so the desert
which is all shifting sand, is known as the Erg.

My small caravan was made up at Bou-Saada. I
hired four camels, and the chief of the cameleers was a
fine sheik-hke Arab, red-bronze in skin and glossy
black-bearded, and he was sHm and sinew^^ with much
tracking across the desert. He had a beautiful name,
Bachir Ben-El-Ameur, and he informed me with pride
— so there must have been distinction — that he belonged
to the tribe of the Ouled Ziane. As servant I had an
Arab with a villainous face and a bad foot, Lakhdar Ben
Bouchagour, whom I called Partington for short. Best
of all I had as companion a rover like myseK, a man
who had served in the Navy, had Uved on a cattle-run
in Queensland for five years and lost his money, and was
now spending his time pamting cathedrals in Spain and
native life in Algeria. We had two men to whack the
camels, though their office was useless, for nothing but
an earthquake will hustle a camel.

Whilst the beasts were squatting with our belongings —
everything to last us the journey, from rough, straw-

THE DESERT 27

filled mattresses to flour to make bread — they swore
furiously. They swore in Ai"abic. Whenever I wanted
to make my men " sit up," I made furious choking
noises at the back of my throat and the Arabs thought
I was swearing at them in their own tongue, but that
my pronunciation was defective. There is probably
much that is beautiful in the language of Mohammed,
but as half of it sounds like trying to eject a fly that
has got into your ^vindpipe I am confident that camel-
growling is responsible for a lot of it.

The Arabs tell you that camels were once men,
but they broke from the faith and Allah turned them
into camels — their sins are represented by the humps —
to carry the goods of believers. They growl at the
remembrance of their past, and they still keep up an
apiDcarance of pride.

Nobody loves the camel. Of course he is " the ship
of the desert " and has all the quahfications for the
presidency of an abstinence society, for he can go
without drink for a week. But he has the chronic
hump ; his glide is a slouch ; he is the most super-
cilious creature on earth. If you pat him on the neck
and call him " old man," he looks at you disdainfully,
shows his teeth, which are like a lot of dirty, bone egg-
spoons, and swears. He tries to bite you when you
get astride of him, and when you prog him to settle down
so that you may get off, he is so disgusted that he
gets sick. As far as I can discover, his diet is sand,
sage brush, and weed that has prickles an inch long.

Just as we were bidding good-bye to the palm
groves of Bou-Saada, and one of the Arabs was loading
his gun in case we encountered robbers, an old man and
a lad asked that they might join us. Right I The

28 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

old man was as brown as a berry ; he had humorous
eyes and I envied the magnificence of his teeth ; he
was as garrulous as a parish councillor. He was had] ;
he had made the pilgi-image to Mecca. Therefore he
was a man worthy of respect. He took charge of us
all. He knew the route which the gentleman with the
beautiful name, Bachir Ben-El-Ameur, did not, though
he pretended he did. Away V\'e started across a parched
land with hea\ang, reddish hills around.

It was hot. When we pitched camp to eat, I took
from a basket a handful of grapes. Instantly my hand
and the gi'apes were smothered in flies. We ate in
discomfort.

Late afternoon and the heat blistering. The
military authorities in Bou-Saada had told us there
was hereabouts a borj, or rest-jilace, for the convenience
of Fi-ench officers. Even the Jiadj had never heard
about it. But we saw trees. Trees mean water on
the desert. Water means human beings. We struck
an Ai'ab encampment, and two Arabs showed us the
way to a white-washed, two-roomed hut, standing by
a glen through which ran a stream.

My friend and I were in a sweating, clammy con-
dition. We slipped to the water, stripped and bathed
beneath pink oleanders, whilst heavy tortoises rolled
away from our intrusion.

We slept on the floor of the borj. In the dead of
night a gun went off, and we heard groans. Our Arabs
were all huddled in the next room. One of them had
kicked over a gun, which went off and lodged a charge
of shot in the knee of the hadfs young fi'iend. "It is
wi-itten," is the Arab " kismet,'^ and little fuss was made.
The Jiadj burned a rag and cauterised the wound. We

THE DESERT 29

poured olive oil on the knee. We hunted up the camels,
hoisted the wounded man on one of them, and before
morning broke we were once more on our way.

For two days, journeying seventy miles, we saw no
water. We took our supply in goat-sldns. It ceased to
be appetising, got greyish, was luke-warm. Even
thirsty men do not love water that tastes of dead goat
and tar.

When we pitched camp to " boil the billy," two worn
creatures crawled to us over the sand dunes. They were
father and son — a bright youngster of not more than
nine years — and they were tramping to Tolga to get
work in the gathering of dates. They were distressed
by lack of water and their tongues were swollen. We
gave them what they wanted. The elder Arab poured
meal upon his burnous, mixed water with it, kneaded
a dough and made a cake on the ashes of our fire.

All that day we saw nobody. We camped on a
hill-side, and, without any covering, slept beneath the
stars. The place was stony, but we scraped places, so
our sandy bed would not be too jagged. We collected
tufts of dwarf bushes — little bits of burnt greenstuff
that pushed up above the sand — ^lit our fires, kept
them aglow with dried camel di'oppings which we had
gathered. The camels had nothing to drink, but they
roamed for an hour or so, and crunched poor fodder.

Night fell. The camels were brought in, compelled
to lie down, and then we thonged their legs so they
could not rise.

The camp fires flared. We knocked the bottom off
a bottle, stuck it nose down in the sand, inserted a
candle, and improvised a lamp.

It was an eerie but picturesque sight, the flames

30 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

lighting up the group of white-robed Arabs and the
drowsy camels.

Night fell like a curtain. My friend and I smoked
and then, dog-tired, we went to sleep at seven o'clock.
I awoke refreshed. The sky was a spangle of stars.
I looked east for the dawn, for we must be up and away.
We had a long day before us. I struck a match and
looked at my watch. It was only eleven o'clock. The
Arabs were hunched together near the camels. The
whole world was still, except for the jaw-giinding sound
made by the camels whilst chewing their cud. It was
Saturday night, and as I lay there my thoughts wan-
dered away to the crowded cities of England, aflame
with electric lights and noisy with traffic, and I pictured
the contrast.

At three in the morning camp was roused. It was a
tedious business loading camels in the dark. We sipped
water and munched native bread. A cold wind was
blowing, and we shivered. It took an hour and a half
to get under way.

For six hours we marched mthout a halt. We
struck broken, rocky country — the rocks burnt red.
Then, on the plains, we crossed a white stretch which
brought the sensation of chewing chalk to the mouth,
and hurt the eyes with its glare. Our Arabs were all for
pushing on. They were afraid of running short of water.
But we insisted on one hour's halt to make tea. The
heat bit us like blasts from an oven, and we breathed
hard.

There was a wretched little gnarled tree no higher
than a table. We flung a burnous on one side, and then
my friend and I took it in turns to lie in the shade.

Far on the horizon, thrown up by a mu'age, was a

THE DESERT 31

streak of dark green, an oasis. It was the date palms
of Tolga. There was water — cool water. Hunger is
terrible, but thirst is worse. We were pushing our
camels, and travelling in the blaze of the day instead
of resting. The poor beasts began to show signs of
exhaustion. Their pace slowed down to a slouch of not
more than two miles an hour.

The oasis ! Blessed sight ! But it took five long,
racking, horrible hom-s — sitting in crumpled attitudes
on the camels with the heat sapping all energy from our
marrows, whilst we slowly sag-sagged towards the
palms. One was too hot to think. There was nothing
for it but to lapse into a resigned, comatose state.

Water at last! The camels drank. We dropped
on to our knees and lifted handfuls of water to our
white, cracked lips. The Arabs removed their shoes
and gave thanks to Allah.

Be it remembered we were travelling in Ramadan
— ^the great Mohammedan fast. Our Arabs would have
a meal of kous-kous at sundown, sitting round a wooden
platter, and each taking turn to have a colossal spoon-
ful with a wooden spoon. They would tend their camels,
and then lie down and sleep till, maybe, midnight, when
they would start a fire and eat again. From then until
after sunset, about eighteen hours, walking over rough
ground, and often through sand which made progress
laborious, they never ate nor drank.

Kous-kous was all they ever ate, not very invigorating
diet, and on that, with their lips never refreshed by a
drop of water, they could go forty miles a day over
exhausting country. The staying-power of the Arab is
nothing short of wonderful.

32 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

There must be something in the climate which staves
off hunger. Even we two white men did not suffer.
We had a slab of kous-koiis cake, not over clean, and a
drink of tea at thi'ee o'clock in the morning. Between
ten and eleven we had the same, not because we were
hungry, but because we thought it advisable to eat.
But in the evening we did not do badly, for we had
tinned soup, tinned meat, kous-kous cake, some fi'uit,
a bottle of wine, coffee and plenty to smoke.

As we crossed the great endless plain before Biskra —
with the straight line of the southern horizon lying like a
mauve sea — we touched country where there was water.

Groups of lowly-built, dingy, brown tents of the
nomads dotted the land, and mixed herds of sheep and
goats were being slowly led, not di'iven, to their feeding-
places. Also there were heavily equipped camel cara-
vans setting off for the south, the men walking and the
women, gorgeously clad, peering out from a kind of
gaudy-colom'ed tent erected over the camel humps.

Tliese caravans do not travel more than from ten
to twenty miles a day — we did double that distance —
and the guttural shouts of the men could be heard over
long distances. A camel, or really dromedar}^, for the
beast hereabouts has only a single hump, shows that
hump fine and large when in good condition. Work
him hard and the hump almost disappears.

We found the Arabs in these caravans genial fellows,
though, when camping, they rather edged us away from
the tents where the women were. All the tents are alike,
except that the tent of a sheik has generally some
plumes wavhig over the top. There is no furniture.
The mats are covered with saclcs of grain or figs or
dates. It is noticeable how little civilisation has touched

THE DESERT 33

the lives of these people. They carry nearly everj'thing
in skins or woven grass. I never saw a hempen cord.
All their ropes are of camel-hair.

One caravan we encountered must have consisted
of over a hundred camels. INIoving along in something
like Indian file, it looked, in the far away, hke some
long snake crawling across the desert. Mostly highly
coloured print goods from Fi'ance were being taken to
the Saharan towns, and these were to be bartered with
merchants for dates.

Now, although at places we saw the desert stretch
illimitable and flat to the very dip of the world, we
learned that the desert is not necessarily an endless,
flat expanse of sand. There were areas of dry marsh-
land, with the surface splotched with alkali. Tlicre
were mighty knuckles of burnt rock, and the wind had
blown the sand in a sweep to their very top.

Not a cloud in sight. The sky peerless blue. A
shunmering haze hanging over the world.

The desert is full of cruel beauty. It fascmates and
it kills. You liave agony and you suffer, but always
the heart desires to penetrate the great mysterious
beyond.

CHAPTER IV

UNDER THE TENTS

NEVER-ending is the Sahara desert. Sand and stones,
and then sand and sand and sand. Yet, where under-
ground springs burst the crust of earth, vegetation is
luxuriant. The aridity of the Sahara is due not to the
soil but to the chmate.

The northern Sahara, as extensive as France, sup-
ports only a httle over a quarter of a million people.
They grow dates, or they are nomadic and rear horses
and sheep and goats.

I came across encampments of Arabs, bunches of
low, wide-spreading camel-hair tents, and in the morn-
ing the men led their flocks to skimpy pastm'age. One
wondered what eating stuff the sheep could find, and
yet they looked well-nm'tured.

The Mohammedan is always hospitable. In the
towns of Algeria he is usually called a Moor, and the
name Aiab is applied to those who live on the plains.
The town native has picked up a good many vices of
the Em'opeans, and is often a blackguard. The Arab
who is a nomad, and keeps to his tents on the desert, is
a gentleman, though a liar. I do not think the Arab
is brave — his fear of attack at night when I camped
with him was ludicrous — but he is as frank as a boy.
He leads the truly simple life ; his fare is of the homeliest ;
he spends much of his time in the hot silence of the

34

UNDER THE TENTS 35

desert ; he has no books, no newspapers ; he is happily
ignorant of the great outside world and all its problems ;
his world is his tribe and his sheep and his tent.

He is religious. There is much that is sad in the
large, lustrous black eyes. His music and his songs
are lamentations, and strange is the sound of Arab
music when heard, flute-like, over the sands ; then it
entwines the thoughts, and one listens with hushed
interest as to the murmur of a fountain and the chirp
of a cricket.

I got to love him as one loves something that one
does not quite understand. I could never fathom his
mind. He often lied, but I learnt that the lie had
always behind it the intention of giving pleasure and to
avoid the truth which might give pain. It is against his
religion to have reproductions of the human figure. At
fu-st I always made the request when I wanted to take
a photograph, and usually I was told his faith forbade
his sanction. But if I snapped him sans permission
he not only did not mind but was pleased, and asked
that he might be sent a copy of the picture.

He likes to hunt the gazelle, but his gim is an old
flint-lock, and its carrying distance is short. One
morning we came across a herd. They were off
scampering like lightning amongst the dunes. One of
my men went off stalking, and he did not come up with
the caravan till late in the day. He had killed nothing,
but he had been very happy. The Arabs are fond of
hawking. I heard of an Arab who let his falcons loose
every year after the close of the hunting season, and
recovered them by hanging a pigeon in a net in a bush
and hiding himself. The falcon swooped to seize its
prey, and got entangled in the meshes of the net.

36 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

Sometimes we pitched our resting place near water
and an Arab encampment. There was a heavy cahn in
the fading splendom* of the day. In the sunsets, so
gorgeously magnificent, was something spiritual, holy,
inciting to reverence. The far-away hills were like
red-hot iron softening to grey, and the desert was a sea
of dreamy hehotrope. Bits of the world were in
silhouette, and died in vapoury diaphanousness. Tlie
clouds were gauzy pennants in the sky. The air was
pungent with the sharp scent of the sage. The silence —
broken only by the far-away voice of the herdsman to
his flock — was exquisite.

The Arab women were shy — or, perhaps, they were
only discreet in the presence of their masters. They
pulled the veil or turned their heads. But I soon saw
that if one ignored the women — did not go peering
about and looking at them — they proceeded with their
work and took no notice of the stranger. Their features
were regular and often Semitic. As they hobbled in
and out of the tents they were moving bits of colour,
for they wore the brightest of jackets and startling-hued
pantaloons. On rough frames they wove the burnous,
and they crouched before smouldering fires kneading
kous-kous for the evening meal.

We made friends with the Arabs, and shared our food
with them. They were delighted wi\h our tinned
meats, but I had always to give my assurance there
was no pig — the unclean beast. Rarely does the Arab
eat meat, but when he does he has no prejudices except
the hog. Camel's hump is a delicacy. He will eat
locusts and serpents and dogs, and by no means turn
up his nose at jackal — and this cowardly animal fre-
quently crawled round our camp. The Arabs believe

UNDER THE TENTS 37

that to give the heart of the jackal to childi'en will
make them wise, but madness comes to those who eat
the brains.

I disliked the sneaking Arab dog ; he is a sort of
lean dingo, and has never any courage except to
bark. Yet he is a good watch-dog, and when desert
pu'ates crawl up in the night to steal camels which have
strayed a little, can be trusted to raise a yelping
clamour.

We drank water from the goat-skins, muddy and
with a flavour of intestines. Wliy drink this when
there was frthh spring water at hand ? Because, said
the Arabs, fresh water causes colic and fever ! Well,
one of them must have been drinking fresh water, for
he had fever and his temperature was high. I felt his
pulse, and proceeded to get some quinine fi'om my
little medicine-chest. He would not take it. He sus-
pected it. He had a number of charms about him, and
they did not seem to do him much good. The talkative
old hadj fussed about, put a fleecy sheepskin on the
man's stomach, and then rubbed his big toe with a
piece of silk. Was it what might be called Moslem
science which healed him ? Anyway, the fever had
gone by morning.

It is interesting that these people had inoculation
against small-pox long before the days of Jenner. They
will not, however, be inoculated with virus from a calf.
The pus must be taken from a smaU-pox patient and
inserted in the soft skin between the thumb and the
fii'st finger. We have an old saying about taking " a
hair of the dog that bit you " ; I have always regarded
it symboUcally, as meaning that when a man has been
carousing overnight and feels limp in the morning.

38 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

the most elTective pick-me-up is another draught of
alcohol. But in the Algerian Sahara, if an Arab is bitten
by a dog he seizes the animal, pulls out a hair and
applies it to the bite. If the dog is mad, he kills it,
and opening the body, takes out the heart, which he
grills and eats.

The poorer nomads have great faith in written
prayers. A scribble by a hadj is regarded as miraculous.
The incantation can be on a bit of paper or on an onion,
or on the shell of an egg, and when the paper is
swallowed, the onion munched, or the egg eaten the
sick man at once begins to feel well agahi.

Anything that comes from Mecca has all the potency
of an American patent medicine. A man who has been
to Mecca can set up in business as a doctor without
passing any troublesome examinations. A date from
Mecca, a sip of water from the sacred spring of Zem-Zem,
above all a grain of sand gathered from the grave of
the Prophet, are invariably efficacious to drive out the
djinns which are rampaging in the body of the sick
Mohammedan.

My friends told me that the number of nomadic
Arabs is on the decrease. Here, as in more advanced
countries, the move is towards the towns. And, just
as in the advanced countries, town life apparently works
for degeneration of the race ; the Arab, taken from
the tents, and put into the towns, loses much of his
simplicity of character.

The Arabs, however, are not the greatest wanderers ;
there are the blue-veiled Touaregs of the far south,
who are really Berbers. After the Arab invasion, when
North Africa yielded to Mohamm.edanism, the tendency
was to settle. It was anarchy and successive con-

UNDER THE TENTS 39

quests which sent the Arabs roaming from place
to place, searching for feeding-places to graze their
flocks.

These nomad tribes travel north as the summer heats
approach. The shearing takes place about April, and
tribesmen are sent to the towns which dot the
northern edge of the Sahara to learn the best markets
for sheep and wool. Then there is a move forward,
an advancing village of, maybe, a hundred persons :
men, women, children, all their earthly belongings.
It is a wonderful spectacle to meet such a caravan,
travelling with the slowness of a camel, horsemen
always on the outer fringe to guard against attack.
Camps are pitched a mile or so outside towns like
Kairouan or Biskra, or Laghouat or Djelfa, or even
in the hills. But when the autumn rains come, and
new pasturage may be sprouting on the Sahara, camp
is sti-uck, and away the tribe travels south, taking,
maybe, two months before they reach the feeding-
grounds which are theirs by custom.

There is a good deal of brigandage, though this
is considered a gentlemanly profession, and does not
prevent the Arab, in all other respects, being an
excellent friend. The French authorities, however,
do not appreciate the romance of camel raiding. The
Arabs are good to their horses, but they have no
tenderness for the camel. They believe that in a
previous existence it was a human ill-doer, and is
now a camel as a punishm.ent for sin. Why should
they soften the wrath of Allah ? The horse is a noble
animal, and is useful in desert robbery. Says Abd-
el-Kader : " The poor Arab needs a horse if he is to
fall on the goods of his enemy, and to seize them and

40 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

enrich himself, just as the rich Arab needs the horse
to protect his fortune and his Hfe."

The true Arab has the gipsy spirit. He must
live in the open ; he must be free from restraint ;
he must have great distances for his eye to range ;
he must be master of his own time. A French general,
travelling south, told a number of chiefs they ought
to build houses. This advice they took as an order,
and they built them. When the general returned he
was glad to see the houses ; but the chiefs were
encamped outside, and the houses were inhabited by
goats, which stuck their heads through the windows.

Yet there is no doubt that the use of the tent on
the Sahara is decreasing. That does not mean im-
proved social conditions ; very likely it means
poverty. Mud-houses are being built, fewer camels,
horses and sheep are reared ; agriculture is being
more followed ; the family is becoming independent
of the tribe, and there is more individualisation in the
tribe. The French are doing much to encourage the
natives to settle as agriculturists. A splendid work
is going on in the hills in the way of afforestation.
Yet I am afraid that occasionally there is more energy
than discrimination. The pastoral life should not be
checked to grow trees in soils incapable of tree-
growing, and it is not wise to stunt the breeding of
sheep so that indifferent wheat may be grown on
shingly, poor ground.

In the past there has been the wholesale destruc-
tion of forests in northern Algeria to provide pasture
for flocks. Brushwood has disappeared to a great
extent, and sand-dunes now heave where once were
shady woods. The sand is encroaching like a sea

UNDER THE TENTS 41

upon the north. I remember at Ain-Sefra — wlx^re
after a storm the sand is frequently ankle-deep in the
streets — remarking what looks like a hill of sand.
Each gale blows the southern slopes over to the
northern slopes. So year by year it appears to be
moving. The French are doing their utmost to keep
it in check by carting stable-manure to the dune at
the beginning of the rainy season. The manure is
spread, the rain brings vegetation, and this paves
the way for tree-planting. In the early morning
there is generally a breeze from the desert, nothing
more than a pleasant fan to the cheek. But the
powdery sand runs before it. It comes and it comes,
and struggling vegetation is buried beneath it. And
far south, where the sand has conquered, and where
the wind blows and the sand is stirred as with a
tornado, and the sun is blackened out, and all the
region is a seething sea of sand, great caravans have
been lost for ever.

The Arabs talked of these things as we sat round
the fires in the dark of the night. The quick eyes
and the dazzling white teeth of the hadj gleamed in
the glow. He told us that, notwithstanding the shift-
ing sands, he had never lost his way all the years
he had travelled the desert. He used all the land-
marks he could ; but instinct was his chief guide.
I had noticed that frequently the hadj tramped far
ahead of my caravan, stopped suddenly, stood quite
still for a minute, and marched straight on. By
circuitous talk — for the Arab, whilst ready enough
to question the stranger, dislikes being questioned
himself — I gathered the reason.

Mussulman prayers," said the hadj, " are very

n

42 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

grateful to Allah, but they are granted after a time,
that their pleasure may be prolonged. The prayers
of infidels are so hateful that they are answered at
once."

The other Arabs never failed to pay considera-
tion to the hadj. He was the most persistent talker
I ever met, though four hours' talk and four hours'
walk under a blazing sun did slacken him down a
little. It was after the evening meal that he w^axed
garrulous. I searched out my sleeping corner amongst
the baggage — though I always had a dread a camel
would tread the life out of me some night — and went
to sleep blinking at the stars. I would awake hur-
riedly ; the fire was reduced to embers ; everybody
was lying down. But the hadj talked, and always
at the top of his voice.

All strangers are regarded as possible magicians,
because they are strangers. It was thought at first
I had some sinister motive in denying I was a doctor
— ^all foreigners are expected to be doctors — especially
as there was evidence against me in the fact that I
was carrying medicine. The hadj was pleased, because
in camp he was the oracle amongst the party. He
rather posed as having magical powers by reason that
he had been to Mecca. Out of his cataract of talk
I often snatched a fragment of interest. Barbers and
blacksmiths have some semi-magic attributes, for both
classes are connected in some way with heating,
bleeding and cauterising with hot iron. Iron drives
away evil spirits, and, as with us, horse-shoes bring
good luck. The hadj nevertheless proclaimed con-
tempt for old superstitions. He remembered the
time when, if there was a plague in a town, and

UNDER THE TENTS 43

Arabs desired to enter without fear of infection, they
would get down on all fours, and bray like wild asses.
Then they were quite confident they were impervious
to disease, and invariably escaped — some evidence of
the effect of faith.

The fear of the evil eye is widespread amongst the
natives, and the hadj taught me the way to resist it ;
stretch the arm towards the person with the evil eye
and close the hand as much as possible, except that the
first and third fingers must be outspread. A dreamy-
ej^ed person runs risks, for his far-away look is certain
to be interpreted that he is gazing at the devil. Any-
one with an evil eye has power to injure by reason of
envy. He has only to see the something he admires
and covets, and it at once begins to pine away and die.
There is possibly some connection between the fear
of the evil or covetous eye and the wearing of the
veil. It is not generally known, but in distant times
the veil was worn by young men as well as by women.
On the other hand, the veil may have been imposed
to prevent the wearer exercising undue influence upon
others. In many parts of the Mohammedan world
the women are completely veiled. Yet I fancy the
general practice of veiling so that only the eyes are
revealed — the most beautiful of an Oriental woman's
features — has a very disturbing effect.

As a protection against the evil eye, many things
are employed. The representation of another eye —
indeed, anything that gleams and glitters like an eye
— has a good result. Animals' horns are a magical
defence. In the Sahara horns and entire skulls are
placed over the house-tops — (consider whether the
custom of placing the horns of animals in the entrance

44 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

hall of a European house may have its origin in the
Oriental practice) — and I frequently met peasants
with boar tusks, attached to a string, hung round
their neck. The hand is the most potent against
malign influence. All over northern Africa, painted
on doors, hung in houses, and used as jewels, are
representations of hands, called " Fatma hands " by
Europeans, though the Arab name is Kharn (five
fingers). The number five, khamsa, is so powerful
that it is ill-omened to use it in conversation.

I was sauntering one early morning, and met an
Arab with a jar of goat's milk. He immediately
offered the jar to me, not that I might drink, but that
I might dip my fingers in it and have good luck for
the day. Aid when I got back I found the hadj in
some perturbation. He had a tear in his burnous.
I said I would give him some cotton and thread and
he could soon repair it. " It is not that," he replied,
" but this tear signifies I am going to have trouble
in my aifairs." Thus superstition hedges the whole
life of an Arab.

Sneezing is favourable as signifying the expulsion
of evil spirits — and do not Anglo-Saxons cry, " God
bless you ! " when a friend gives a loud " chi-chou " ?
But yawning is detestable to Mohammedans,
not by reason of defective manners, indicating a
boredom which should be suffered without sign, but
because, with the mouth wide open, who can say
what terrible evil spirits will slip down the throat ?

Though Moslem maidens have no choice in a
husband, a girl's thoughts dwell on love as soon as
her mother commands that she wear the veil. The
talk is always of love-making, and the stories are

UNDER THE TENTS 45

rather shocking. An Arab girl of fourteen will
artlessly tell an impropriety which would make a
seasoned clubman hide his head behind his news-
paper. But to the Arab girl there is nothing wrong
or lewd or improper. It is a natural thing to tell a
story about passion. Oh ! shocking, shocking, to
rear a girl with no thought but of being love -mate
to some man ! Wicked to teach her she has but
one mission in life, a mission good Christians never
mention in polite society ! The relation of the sexes
is something which the Christian softly blushes for,
and acts as though some apology were necessary ;
anjrway, it must be secret. Not to keep the relation-
ship secret would give pain to worthy folk with
families. The Arabs, however, talk about love and
passion as the chief things in life — and there is no
shame. Sensual, indeed, are they not ? But the
Moslem does not send his girl to ill-ventilated and
over-heated workrooms to become wan, crook-
figured and anaemic. He never lets her drudge her
life out behind drapery counters for miserable wages.
He does not turn his young wife out at six o'clock
on a gnawung winter morning to toil long hours
in cotton and woollen factories. His ideal of woman-
hood is not the same as that of the Christian ; but
in no Mohammedan countries do you see slouching,
unkempt, slobbering mothers hanging round the doors
of gin shops. He does not talk about the high
character of women, but nowhere does he have his
women so degraded as hundreds of thousands of
women are degraded in Christian lands. He — but
this is getting rather " preachy," and I liave no
right to preach.

46 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

A young girl with no husband coming along
inquires as to her destiny by taking one of the yard-
long combs used for carding wool, and dressing it
in a pious man's clothes ; the dummy is provided
with beard and moustaches of wool, and crowned
with a turban. It is then set against the wall. The
girl sits by it and incense is burnt before it, and the
request is made : " My lord comb, who art near the
head of the girl, free her by marriage." Ceremonies
meaningless to the European, are enacted, all of
which lead the girl, during the night, to see a little
old man appear, and he tells her the future.

The lights have been extinguished in the tents.
The coy Arab girls are, I hope, sleeping and dreaming
sweet dreams. To the rattle of the hadfs tongue I
fall asleep. I wake with a start and shiver, for the
night is cold. And a little old man is before me,
grunting that it is an hour before dawn, and it is time
to make coffee and catch the camels and get on
our way before the rising of the sun.

CHAPTER V

THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN

We went outside the gates of Tlemcen and down a
winding path to the soft shade of trees. There we
rested, for it was hot, and looked over the most
fruitful plain in Africa to the hills. Between a dip
we caught a glimpse of the sea. Winsome children
were playing about, and I gave them sweetmeats in
memory of Sidi-El-Haloui. So we got their friend-
ship, and two little boys and three little girls, dancing
and laughing and their eyes full of happiness, showed
us the Mosque of Sidi-El-Haloui.

Now Sidi-El-Haloui is the saint of the children.
When the Moors were in Spain he was born at
Seville. He was a good man, and he made a pil-
grimage to Sidi Okba, near Biskra, where sleeps the
Arabian warrior who subdued North Africa to Islam.
But on his return he found Tlemcen, a beautiful spot.
So he settled there. He made sweetmeats which are
called halouat in Arabic, and that is how he came to
be known as El-Haloui.

He was very fond of children, and the way he
got them to listen to him when preaching was by
giving them sweetmeats. The children of Tlemcen
in those days were very like the children of to-day.
Wide-eyed and eager, they gathered round his stall
and he gave them what their little hearts hungered

47

48 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

for, and then he told them about Mohammed, and how
boys and girls ought to be kind, so that they should
grow into good men and women. His manner was
soft and his smile gracious, and everybody loved him,
and crowds gathered round to hear what he had
to say.

The Sultan heard of the saintly confectioner. So
he got him to go to the palace to teach his sons. The
Grand Vizier did not like the sweetmeat-giver to be
so popular. He charged him with being a sorcerer,
and outside the gate, where the mosque now stands,
his head was chopped off. At nightfall, when from
the walls of the city the bouab, or gate-keeper, was
shouting for all without to come in before the gates
were closed, a voice was heard : " Close the gates ;
there is no one outside, except El-Haloui the
oppressed." Each night, for seven nights, when the
gate-keeper cried, that was the strange answer he got.
The people of Tlemcen became afraid. The Sultan
came, and when the bouab cried, the Sultan heard the
reply. He knew a great crime had been done. The
Grand Vizier was buried alive in a case of mortar,
and as the mortar hardened he died in agony. The
people, to show how sorry they were for the killing
of the confectioner-saint, built the beautiful Mosque
of Sidi-El-Haloui. And all this took place nearly six
hundred years ago.

But the children of Tlemcen love the saint who
gave sweetmeats to the children in those far-away
days, and they delight to play in front of the mosque.
They play on the steps of the mosque and about its
portals. Sometimes they are noisy with happiness,
and Mohammedans who are saying their prayers

THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN 49

hear them. But nobody is ever cross with the
children, because they remember that Sidi-El-Haloui
loved them.

The children of Tlemcen are the most beautiful
in the world — not some of them, but all of them. Is
it because through the centuries they have known
they have a special saint to themselves ? Is it because
their mothers are happy to the heart that their little
ones are under the protection of El-Haloui ? I
wonder 1

To saunter through the lanes of Tlemcen was like
a stroll through a land of fairies. There was much
to see — and I saw it with the Professor and the
American Girl — but best of all it was to get away
and find the corner where children were wont to play,
and then, whilst pretending to be gazing vacantly
around, to feast my eyes on these mites of
loveliness.

The Arab boys, with just a hint of the olive in
their skins, were jolly little chaps, with shaven bullet-
heads, plump cheeks and impudent, mirthful eyes.
They were healthy and frank and happy, and with
tight lips they chased each other and punched each
other, and dare-devilled on the edge of dangerous
walls.

But I liked the little girls best — maybe that was
a weakness of the flesh as a man. And when I come
to think of it, they were not real little girls : they
were little women of six, eight and ten years of age !
They were lithe and dainty, and carried themselves
with a manner. According to local custom, their hair
was dyed to the tone known as burnt gold, and it was
luxurious, curly hair, which fell like a cascade over

50 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

their shoulders. Their complexions were as soft as a
ripe peach. Perfectly regular features, nose, lips and
ears, with none of the indefiniteness of feature of girls
in some other countries. Perhaps they knev>r they
were pretty. Anyway, there was a coquettish look
in the large brown eyes when they caught the stranger
glancing at them. Perhaps it was as well that in a
few years they would have to wear the veil when in
the streets, or terrible would be the consequences
to young male Algerians. They were never awkward,
but always graceful, and when playing, the way they
moved their half-bared and well-proportioned arms,
and made gestures with their pointed, henna-tipped
fingers, was something to raise a smile of gladness in
recollection.

Here is a fruiterer's stall piled into many pjTamids
of gaudy fruit, radiant pomegranates, blushing apples,
soft green grapes, the deep purple of fresh figs, the
red and yellow of tomatoes. Let us buy a bunch of
grapes, and then, sitting within the shadow of the
broad sack awning, take note of the children. Now
there is a tiny maid in saffron, not more than seven
years, moving briskly about the vegetable stalls, prim
and busVess-hke, carrying a basket half as big as
herself, and — in strict accordance with the habit of
the East — beating down in price the vendors of
sweet potatoes and aubergine. There is another girl,
black and lustrous-eyed, with warm life showing
through the sallow of her cheek. Her dress, the
cheapest, loosest-fitting, home-made garment imagin-
able, is a splash of vermilion. She looks almost
Italian, with the tight-fitting handkerchief over the
head ; but the ear-rings are large and as she walks

THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN 51

bare-footed, there is a jingle-jangle from the silver
anklets she is wearing.

Now a couple of children swinging their clasped
hands, and singing as they trip along. Exquisite I
Could an actress on the stage carry her little peaked,
purple cap more jauntily than the elder girl of eight,
whose hair, however, is black and glossy, free from
dye ? What a lithe, nervous figure, and how that
sash of varied tints, with the knot in front, gives
distinction to the beflowered print frock, whilst ear-
rings of rough pearls fall like big beads. And her
companion — shorter, brighter, with a turban of wine-
hued velvet and a gold waistband round her white
frock — just see how she shakes her bracelets as she
raises her arm to give her turban a rakish tilt ! The
sight is good to the eyes.

What a toddler this little thing is, keeping close
to its white -shrouded mother ! But a picture. The
hair is an aureole of auburn. The little dress is of
pea-green, held with a silver belt, and the sleeves are
of muslin with gentle embroidery. Toddler, did I
say ? Well, I use the word to indicate she was small,
maybe five years of age. But she steps along with
a sort of crisp stride, and looks at you with the con-
fidence of a grown woman.

Perhaps you prefer this naive little thing in grey,
with blue and orange-red stripes and a sash of green
— an outrageous blend, and yet somehow, in this
warm Africa rousing no sense of incongruity ? Or
this girl, eleven maybe — almost ready for the veil.
What a pity that such a lissom figure should be hidden
in voluminous folds of white, or that you should no
longer see those gleaming teeth when she laughs, or

52 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

her charms be revealed by that creamy head-dress
and the frock she is wearing. Look at that other
girl ; see her fawn eyes, note her elfish alertness as
she steps along, a little bundle of lilac carrying a jar
of water upon her shoulder. There is a study in
brown ; her hair is brown ; her eyes are brown ; she
has a frock of brown, and there is a broad brown
ribbon across her forehead.

Let us walk up this lane, the neighbouring walls
washed blue, and beneath a fig-tree see a group of
children playing in the sunshine and the shadow.
Just look at that gambolling boy in his blvie coat,
red shirt, and little, baggy, mustard-coloured trousers.
And that little girl, a splash of canary, hopping about
in the sunlight. Mark the gracefulness — that is par-
ticularly to be noted. And what a lot of jewellery —
ruby glass about the neck, and ruby ear-rings and
ruby bracelets !

Oh, yes, I know it would all be so bizarre and
stagy in a drab-skied Western land. But here, how
the children fit the picture 1 And they are all so
beautiful. I must buy more sweets, and pretend
I am a distant, distant relative of Sidi-El-Haloui.

All the way from Oran the Professor has babbled
about Tlemcen, the ancient capital of the Arab west,
the very home of pure Moorish art, a citadel of high
culture when Europe was still under the shadow of
the Dark Ages.

" Well," said the American Girl, " I never heard
of Tlemcen till a week ago."

I thanked her ; she was more courageous than
I dared be.

THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN 53

*' Tlemcen," said the Professor, addressing us as
children needing instruction, " is the most interesting
city in North Africa. In Roman times it was called
Pomaria "

" Not the place the darling little dogs come
from ? " exclaimed the Girl.

" I did not say Pomerania, but Pomaria," replied
the learned one, with rebuke in his tone, " and after-
wards it was called Agadir. The present city, founded
some nine hundred years ago, was called Tagrart,
and it was not till centuries later it got the name of
Tlemcen."

" Guess it must have been a pretty naughty city
to have required so many aliases," observed the Girl.
" When will it change its name again ? "

*' When people visit a historic city, it would be
to their advantage if they read something about it
beforehand." The Professor spoke sententiously.

The Girl from the United States looked at me
and smiled. " Is that rudeness intended for you
or me ? " she asked.

" Tell us some more, Professor," I said. " I am
benighted in ignorance. Never mind this young
woman, who is sure to enlighten us that the Grand
Mosque — I suppose there is a Grand Mosque in
Tlemcen — won't hold as many people as the Audi-
torium in Chicago, and that the Singer Building in
New York is ever so much higher than the most
graceful minaret — that is, I suppose Tlemcen is
famous for its minarets. Go on, Professor. Stuff me
with facts. I want to gorge on knowledge. We are
really very fortunate to have such a friend, aren't
we. Girl ? "

54 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

The Girl muttered something about rudeness, and
then exclaimed with a gush, " Rather ! "

" Yes," said the Professor, " when the Arabs
swept across Africa they made Tlemcen their capital
in the west. It was the centre of much conflict, and
various dynasties held it in power, like the Idrissides,
the Almohades, and the Abd-el-Ouadites."

" How remarkable," said the Girl, looking from
the railway carriage window. I gave her a look of
censure. " Who did you say the last gentlemen
were ? " she asked sweetly.

" The Abd-el-Ouadites," answered the Professor,
" and it was in their time that Tlemcen was the
centre of learning and art, and when the beautiful
mosques were erected. Of course, when the Turks

came *'

The Girl shrugged her shoulders. " Oh, yes, and
the horrible Turks came and spoilt it all. But what
a lot of reading you must have done to learn all this.
I know the names would get horribly muddled up in
my head. But is it romantic ? I am sure I shall not
like Tlem.cen unless it is romantic."

A little look of laughter came into the Professor's
eyes. " Now I'll tell you a story : In the mechouar,
or citadel, there was once a silver tree with all kinds
of singing birds in its branches and a falcon on the
top. When the wind, worked by bellows at the foot
of the tree, reached the singing birds, each sang its
own proper notes. When the wind reached the falcon
it uttered a piercing cry and the other birds stopped
singing. And this tree stood in a courtyard which
was paved with marble and onyx. Also there was a
strange clock which was built there three hundred

THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN 55

years before the clock which the Sultan Haroun al-
Raschid gave to Louis XIV. of France, you know."

The Girl and I nodded — though really we did not
know.

" Above the clock," continued the Professor, " was
a bush, in which a bird was perched with wings out-
spread over its young. At the foot of the bush was
a serpent slowly issuing from its lair. At the stroke
of each hour two eagles came out from two doors
and dropped copper balls from their beaks into a
copper basin. These rolled inside the clock, and
caused the serpent, which had reached the top of the
bush, to hiss and bite one of the young birds, whilst
the old bird called in vain for help. At the same
time, from a door in the clock appeared a young
slave, and in her hand she carried a book in which
was inscribed the hour."

*' How perfectly lovely," exclaimed the Girl ;
*' and shall we see these wonderful things ? '*

" No," replied the Professor, " for I think they
were taken away by some medieval Pierpont Morgan."

The romantic city of the Arabs.

And we arrived by train. We rode in the most
conventional of hotel omnibuses. The road was lit
with tiny blobs of electric light. And we stayed at
the Hotel de France — a. funny old place with a
covered courtyard, and the bedrooms opening upon
the encircling balcony. It made one rather think of
the picture in the novel where Mr. Pickwick has his
first glimpse of Sam Weller.

Out for a stroll in the evening, and the high, black
city walls very mysterious. The streets were dark,

56 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

for the little electric blobs only pin-pricked the dark-
ness. But in the centre of the town there was a
flaring light ; also the stench of acetylene ; also the
shriek of a gramophone.

We sit before a little French cafe. French officers
are playing cards and puffing cigarettes. French
soldiers slouch by in groups, noisy Zouaves in baggy
pantaloons, their soft fezzes stuck on the back of
their closely cut heads and the tassel dangling on
their necks, and cumbrous-clad chasseurs, their much-
too-big swords constantly getting in the way of their
much-too-big boots. The streets are gay with people.
It is the last night of the eight days' Jewish festival
in commemoration of the time when Moses struck
the rock.

Tlie French rule Tlemcen. The Arabs are in a
majority. But it is the Jews that have the business
and make the money. Quite a number of Jews are
here, descendants of those who were expelled from
Spain, and they boast they are the most strict and
orthodox Jews in the world. The Arab retires to
his house within an hour of sundown. But it is in
the cool of the evening that the Jewish people come
out to promenade. There is the old grandfather
Jew, patriarchal and long-bearded, in the costume of
the East which his fathers have worn for centuries.
Then his son, wearing the voluminous, coloured
breeches of the Orient, reaching below the knee ;
he wears slippers, and instead of the enveloping
yellow turban favoured by his father, he wears the
fez. His coat and vest are European. But the
grandson is a modern product : in clothes of the
latest European cut, an American soft felt hat worn

THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN 57

rakishh^ French boots, a cane, waxed moustache :
and he is smoking cigarettes. The women ! The
old dame, wizened, with kohl under her eyes, has a
bright, wide -spreading, pleated skirt, and a shawl is
about her shoulders ; she has a little black skull-
cap, to which is attached a string of golden coins.
But the young miss ! She is in neat-fitting, walking
costume, and over her wide-plumed hat waves a
magnificent feather.

The families walk and laugh and make groups
at the cafes and drink beer. The young fellows
lounge, and tap the top of the marble circular tables
with their canes to call the waiter. The gramophone
sings as though it had sand in its throat. And all
this is the western capital of the Arabs I

The picturesqueness of the East — how it is being
washed away by the floods of civilisation I Civili-
sation ! Here is an Arab who ought to be at home,
sleeping, like a good Moslem. He is drunk, reeling,
gesticulatory, on Christian alcohol. He has a sprig
of jasmine over the ear. He lunges forward to a
cafe table, and begins to slobber and talk maudlin
He is a fine-featured Arab, but he is drunk. He
leans on his arms and dozes. A French waiter
quietly steals the sprig of jasmine. Jews and
Christians laugh at the joke.

The reading of guide-books is a weariness. The
ideal guide-book has yet to be written. It should be
like a friend in whose taste you have confidence,
taking you by the arm and going a stroll together.

The American Girl was sure the Professor had
been consuming guide-books for weeks. I owned

58 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

an idea that he had volumes stuck in his case, and
that he read them each morning whilst sipping his
coffee, and munching his roll in the privacy of his
bedroom. He browsed on facts.

We went to mosques. Indeed, we seemed to
do nothing but tramp from mosque to mosque. We
spent more time in mosques than the strictest
Mohammedan is expected to do. We gushed over
the curves of the Moorish arches until we were tired
of each other's adjectives. At the gate to each
mosque we pushed our booted feet into large,
cavernous babouches (large red slippers with a crushed
heel), so we had to go slithering from place to place.
Once the Girl gave a scream — she had lost one of
the slippers. There it lay, a splotch of red rebuke
on the edge of the holy carpet. Her infidel feet
had desecrated the sanctuary. Mohammedanism had
been outraged ; and I recalled some story of a riot
and intended massacre of Christians because dainty
Christian boots had defiled a mosque. But the
custodian went to the slipper, and, with a smile and
a bow, placed it before the Girl.

Of course we went to the Grand Mosque — the
Djama-el-Kebir — where, the Professor said, lay buried
the saint, Ahmed-Ben-Hassan-el-Ghomari. The Girl
wanted to know who he was. The Professor replied
vaguely that he was a good man ; whereupon the
Girl said pertly that she thought as much.

But we noticed that all hurrying Arabs as they
passed the door gave it a peck of a kiss.

We walked the spacious, columned, and sombre
interior, and listened to the Professor on the acme
of Moorish art, with the reminder that the best to

THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN 59

be seen at Cordova is only a replica of what we were
seeing at Tlemcen. The Girl wondered if she could
buy the two giant Damascus-wrought candlesticks,
for she said they would look real sweet in the hall
at home. I took a fancy to a chandelier, and the
Professor began a disquisition on how it had been
presented by the Sultan of Morocco in the fantastic
days of the early thirteenth century. But the
custodian interrupted him with the bland remark
that this chandelier was a copy made by a Frenchman,
and he did not know what had become of the original.
Not an accurate copy either. On the chandelier was
a bracket for a candle for each day of the year. The
Frenchman provided three hundred and sixty-five
brackets. If he had counted the brackets on the
original he would have found only three hundred
and fifty-four — for the Moslem year is eleven days
shorter than the Christian year. That is why every
Mohammedan fast and festival is eleven days earlier
each year, and it takes the turn of thirty years for
all the memorable religious ceremonies to take place
in every part of the year.

"So," observed the Girl, "though the Moslem
year is now about six hundred years behind the
Christian year, it will catch us up. Do tell now.
Professor, how long it will be before the Moslem year
will be the same as the Christian year ? "

But the Professor said there was a lovely view
from the top of the minaret. It was really high and
square, and not unlike the Campanile at Venice,
except that in places it was faced with green tiles.
The Professor said the tint of the tiles showed what
artists the old Arabs were. Then the custodian said

6o THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

that many of the old tiles had fallen out, and that
new tiles, made in France, replaced them. The
Professor explained that at such a distance it was
impossible for the ordinary eye to distinguish between
the real and the imitation.

It was a long, corkscrew climb, getting to the
top of the minaret. The Girl said that any civilised
country would insist on the introduction of an elevator.
She said this when we were at the top, and she stood
with her back against the wall and looked flushed,
and asked whether it was worth while anyway, for
there were buildings in New York twice as high.
" Yes, sir ; twice as high, and they have elevators
to take you to the top," she told the Professor. " I
guess there is no iced water to be got up here ? "
There was no iced water.

" Who built this stack ? " she demanded, turning
on the Professor.

"This minaret," said he, "was constructed by
Yarmoracen, who was the first king of the dynasty
of the Beni-Zeizan, in the thirteenth century."

" That was before Columbus," added the Girl ;
and then, after a glance at the sun-pocked old brick-
work, " Yes, it looks as if it must have been built
about that time."

We peered down on the white -roofed, mosque-
dotted town. We heard the calls of the Arab mer-
chants in the market. We saw the cool olive groves,
and let the eye travel across the wheat fields of the
plain. We breathed deep the fragrant air. And we'
agreed that Tlemcen was a beautiful city in a
beautiful land.

Near the Grand Mosque was the little house where

THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN 6i

lived Ahmed-Ben-Hassan, five hundred years ago.
Down a broad, whitened passage we went, with the
sun on the walls and the pavement all broken with
shadow by a trailing, matted vine-tree overhead.
The house, with a little door and two Uttle windows,
like indents on the wall, was on one side, and on the
other was the place where Ahmed-Ben-Hassan prayed.
The vine crawled over wide trellis. Here were
mothers, enveloped in white, with their sick children.
The mothers prayed. They bent the wan-eyed and
emaciated childi-en forward, and told them to kiss the
wall. The lips were pressed to the wall, and then
the mothers kissed the children and carried them
away, confident the all-beneficent Allah would hear
a mother's prayer when the shrine had been kissed
by the little one.

Healthy, pretty children were playing about the
wall, and on the top of a neighbouring mosque a
stork had built its nest.

The green door is unlocked, and we go into the
dank, tawdry chamber. Cheap paper on the walls,
flimsy tissue paper rosettes, and in a cage two doves
— the sacred bird — constantly cooing. There is a
bedstead, gimcrack, hung with curtains of yellow.
On the bed is a heaped bundle covered with a dull
silken cloth, and beneath that lies Ahmed-Ben-Hassan.

Mosques, more mosques — all white and severe in
their architecture, save for the frequent Moorish arch.
All gloomy, all pillared ; all with worshippers kneel-
ing on the mats ; all with roofs of cedar, sometimes
plain, some with carved and painted geometric designs
in dark green and faded gold on a ground of red,
softened almost to brown, and the mihrab, a carved

62 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

stucco archway, the carving dehcate, poetic, geometric
— every curve of every line in harmony with the other
Hnes. The Professor waxed enthusiastic in an old
mosque which is now a museum. The mihrab, so he
told us, is regarded by all Orientalists as the most
perfect piece of Arab carving in the world. The Girl
said it was like lace.

The Professor, for a staid man, grew rapturous
over every old tile he saw. You cannot escape from
tiles in the East. They are on the floors, on the walls,
in the roof. His delight was genuine.

But everybody who goes to Algeria raves about
the tiles. What colouring ! What harmony ! What
bold lighting ! What softness of hue I That is how
they talk, because everybody else talks like it.

People talk tiles, and the visitor who gushes the
most enjoys the satisfaction that he or she is the
most artistic person in the room. Not to clasp your
hands and exclaim : " Oh, isn't it lovely ; did you
ever see such exquisite colouring ? " is to proclaim
you have a commonplace soul, or do not mind being
looked at askance as devoid of the artistic sentiment.
That is why ninety-nine persons out of every hundred
tourists you meet in Mauretania talk tiles, tiles — till
you are weary of tiles.

There are tiles — beautiful tiles — and a great sweep
of colour embedded in a white wall, in the shadow of
an overhanging roof, and yet catching the purity of
the African light, has an effect which is grand in its
simplicity. But examine the tiles closely ; they are
ill-made, badly fitting, the glaze is spotty and the
colours run. They are garish. If used to line the
walls of a lavatory in a European home they would

THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN 63

be regarded as the work of a drunken amateur tile-
inaker, and would rouse laughter. There is more
enthusiastic nonsense talked about Oriental tiles than
about anything else.

Tut, tut ! You, my dear lady and gentlemen
tourists, you do know all about tiles. It is only silly
people who rave, without the knowledge you possess.
As for the man who would not have his lavatory
adorned with the average tiles which the average
tourist goes into ecstasies about — well, he is quite
past all artistic hope, isn't he ?

The Professor was a zealot. In the Mosque of Sidi
Ibrahim he clasped his hands. Ah, the dull lustre
of the tiles — very much like the tiles at the side of
modern fii-eplaces. How the browns harmonised with
the yellows — not very certain browns, and rather
dirty yellows. Did not those diamond-shaped pink
tiles make the adjoining black tiles stand out ? — true,
but I have an idea the same effect could be secured
with tiles manufactured three months ago as much
as with those manufactured three centuries back.
On plaques is the Ai'abic inscription : " Seek instruc-
tion from the time of your cradle to the time of your
tomb."

Another burst of admiration before the ceramics
climbing the rectangular minaret of the Djama Oulad-
el-Imam. Near it hangs a little jar of sacred oil. If
you touch the eyes with it you ward off blindness.

" Let us give each other a pat with it, and then
get back to lunch, for I have the appetite of a cow-
boy," said the Girl.

The sirocco was blowing — the sky grey and the

64 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

air hot and lifeless, and every tissue in one's body
as languid as boiled catgut.

Yet the American Girl decided she would walk.
Everybody went to the village of Bou-Medine. The
Professor babbled by the way.

Bou-Mcdine was one of the saints, and the Girl
observed that Tlemcen and its environs had as many
mosques as State Street, Chicago, had dental parlours.

The Professor declined to be disturbed by her
irreverent comparisons, and unfolded that Bou-
Medine was born at Seville

" Wliere the oranges come from," whispered the
Girl.

And that his real name was ChoaibTbn-Hussein-
el-Andalosi.

The Girl asked him to write it down.

When he had done so she remarked it was well
he was a saintly man and changed his name, for he
would never have gone through life as an ordinary
man with a name like that. " I think I would have
called him Chobby, for short," said she.

Well, it appeared from the Professor's discourse j
that the gentleman had a sort of Rhodes travelling
scholarship, for he went to the universities at
Seville, Granada and Fez, came to Tlemcen and made
the pilgrimage to Mecca. Then he became an itinerant
lecturer, visiting Bagdad, Bougie and Cordova, and
finally settled down as permanent lecturer at Tlemcen.
Either because he was a good lecturer, or the people
were glad when he could lecture no more, he was
laid to his long sleep in a beautiful mausoleum at
El-Eubbad, which so impressed the village that they
changed the name of the place to Bou-Medine.

THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN 65

We saw the village perched on the hillside amongst
much green. We panted along the dusty way, rested
under cherry trees, and said the heat might have been
"worse than it was. Also we tramped through a
grove of kouhas, where are buried innumerable
worthy men. The number of worthy men Tlemcei-i
has turned out in its time is a fine testimonial to its
sanctity. But they are all dead now and decently
interred, and their tombs are in decrepitude, and
look very picturesque in photographs.

We left the road and climbed a rugged, ragged
path, which caused even the Professor to pause.
Whilst he mopped his brow he invited us to admire
the beauty of the plain. The three of us talked a
lot about the scenery, because that allowed us to
halt and recover some breath. We had reached the
word " ravishing " when two little Arab boys came
scurrying down the path. One toppled over, and
had a bloody nose in consequence. He howled and
rubbed the tears amongst the mess on his face. We
gave him our sympathy and a coin, whereupon he
instantly recovered, gave chase to the other boy,
and banged his head.

So we reached the mosque and saw all there was
to be seen. There were doors of many-coloured
arabesques, and the court was like a stage-setting in
an opera. We went down marble steps which sug-
gested the approach to the hot-room in a gorgeous
Turkish bath, and in a little chamber — a vault — saw
the faded silks and old-gold embroideries wrapping
the remains of Bou-Medine. The light was pellucid
and soft, and the only noise was the ticking of an
ornate Venetian clock, and the cackle of our impudent

D

66 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

youngster who wanted baksheesh because he had
roused the man who kept the key which gave us
admission.

The Professor drew our attention to some tiles.
Then the Girl suddenly felt faint, and we climbed up
the steps and nearly fell over a devout Moslem who
was on his knees saying his prayers.

To the mosque ! Stop and admire the great
bronze doors, green with age. They were the work
of a Spanish artist, and he made them as the price
of his ransom. The courtyard, encased with \'iolent-
hued tiles. Tiles from the centre fountain had gone,
and French workmen were replacing them with
modern tiles — even more violent than the original
tOes. The Professor had something to say about the
conduct of the French Government in not trying to
match the tiles ; but one of the Frenchmen looked
up and said that the Mohammedans preferred the
new bright tiles to the old ones.

However, it was a drowsy afternoon, and the
Girl sat down in the shade and invited us to think
we were living five hundred years ago. The water
guxgled in the fountain, and fat pigeons fluttered
down and took a bath. The mosaic of tiles framed
the easternness of the scene — the arches, the sculp-
tured inscriptions from the Koran, the carved marbles,
the drone of the old men praying — though 1 dared
not say so, for the day was too luscious to have it
spoilt by any more disquisitions on tiles. We did no
more than glance into the cool shadows of the mosque,
where curiously wrought Oriental lamps were gently
swajnng in the wind. White was the note of the
interior, with here and there tracery of dull blue

THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN 67

and chocolate on a ground of wine-colour — very soft
and very harmonious.

But how dirty the village of Medine is ! We met
a garrulous old man, who pointed the way to a hut
where tiny cups of colfee could be obtained, and
delightedly showed us a cheap looking-glass which
he was taking as a present to his granddaughter,
who was to be wedded on the morrow.

The sirocco falls, and a little vitality comes into
the air. Autumn has tinted the trees, and far away,
ascending a serpentining road, comes an Arab boy,
singing, whilst bringing in his herd of goats for the night.

The quick dusk of the East is enwrapping the
earth. And with evening all the flowers and the
trees of the land seem to offer their fragrance as
incense. The atmosphere is heavy with sweet odours.
As we stroll back — meeting white-wrapped Arabs
and shrouded women as we near the black old walls
of Tlemcen — we are silent for a time. Then the
Girl becomes poetic.

She tells us she is glad to begin feeling the romance
of the East laying hold of her soul, and that there
can be nothing more lovely on earth than living in
so perfectly sweet a place as Tlemcen, which is real
old-time, and where one might forget all about
Western civilisation. She says she wants to get away
from all the noise of modern inventions.

And just then the genii of the hills arranged
there Should be the whistle of a railway engine, and
that the omnibus of the Hotel de France should go
rolling by.

" Yes," remarked the Professor, breaking his own

68 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

reverie, " there is no place in North Africa where
Mohammedan history has been more effectively
made than in and about Tlemcen."

" And demonstrated by tiles," added the Girl,
making an endeavour at facetiousness.

" Take Mansoura," said the Professor.

" ^Miy ? " asked the Girl.

" The entwined history of Tlemcen and Mansoura
is as wonderful as anything on earth."

" Who — who was Mr. Mansoura ? " asked the
Girl, tentatively.

" Mansoura is, or rather was, a town," said the
Professor with slow gravity.

" Oh ! " and then the Girl remarked in sudden
after-thought, " Thanks ! " After that came a smile
and a pleading : " Do tell us all about Man — man —
what-you-call-it."

" I think we might go there this morning," said
the Professor. " You know that Tlemcen has existed
under various names for over two thousand years.
And you know that when the Arabs conquered
northern Africa they made Tlemcen the capital of
the west ; that it was here that Arab civilisation rose
to its highest ; that the arts were cultivated, and
that Tlemcen was the mother of that exquisite
Moorish architecture that you have seen in Spain.
The Grand Mosque is contemporary with the glory
of Granada. Besides being a seat of learning,
Tlemcen was, in the middle ages, the centre of exchange
between Europe and the interior of Africa. I'm
not boring you ? "

' I love it," said the Girl.

" Well, rival Sultans sprang up in the thirteenth

THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN 69

century. Tliere was the Sultan Abou Yakoub, who
besieged Tlemcen for seven years. They were not
fighting all the time, and, therefore, Yakoub occupied
his soldiers in building a new town about two miles
to the west of Tlemcen. He called it El Mansoura,
which means the Victorious One. When peace was
established, Mansoura was evacuated, and there, for
seven years, it stood like a new house with nobody in
it. But trouble broke out between two races of Arabs,
the Beni-Zeigans and the Merinides, and Abou-Hassan,
the Black Sultan, again besieging Tlemcen, made
Mansoura the seat of his government. Thousands of
men were engaged in making it the grandest place
in North Africa, and the Black Sultan began to erect
a beautiful palace. A great wall, surrounding the
entire city, was built. I have read that Mansoura
was famous for its magnificent palaces, its gardens
and its streams. It was prosperous, and there was
much trade. The mosque was marvellous, and the
minaret was one of the highest in the world. But in
time the Merinides were defeated. The Beni-Zeigans,
who had Tlemcen, were not going to have this rival
city so near at hand. So it was ruthlessly destroyed,
and nobody was allowed to live there, and I believe
nothing now remains but a piece of the famous
minaret and some pieces of the old wall. Shall we
go and see ? "

It was a pleasant, fresh morning, as we went
through the Fez Gate and set out on the road which,
if we had continued long enough, would have landed
us in the capital of Morocco. The only people we
met were natives coming in to market — big, swarthy
Aiabs astride ridiculously small donkeys, so that the

70 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

heels of the riders' shppers sometimes trailed on the
ground — and groups of laughing girls with faces un-
covered when at a distance, though careful to pull
their hoods when passing, and spying upon us with
one eye. Vineyards were on either side of us. A land
of peace and bright happiness. It was easy to let
fancy roam back through the centuries to the time
when fierce fighting took place.

And there was all that remained of Mansoura !

There was the towering slice of minaret, standing
straight like a sentinel. The mighty walls, which
were two miles round, have disappeared, except in
one place, and a few battered remnants is all the
evidence of the eighty stout towers. The mosque,
with its thirteen aisles and nine transepts, has gone,
though there still stands the arch with the inscription :
" Abou Yakoub Youssef Ben-Abd-el-Hak gave orders
for the construction of this mosque." There is some-
thing noble about the ruined minaret. Time has
eaten the stone-work and gnawed at the lace-work
carving. The few remaining violet-coloured stones
above the horse-shoe arch hint at the beauty of the
fa9ade when it was all breasted with such stones.
The door is delicately carved — and it is just like
the Puerta del Vino at Granada. But it is imita-
tion, for the original has been removed to the
Louvre.

" Originally," said the Professor, " the minaret
was one hundred and twenty feet high. The Black
Sultan was in a hurry to have the mosque built. He
employed Mussulmans, Christians and Jews. I
believe, if you ask the natives, they will tell you that
the part constructed by unbelievers has entirely gone.

THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN 71

and only this part of the minaret, erected by the
Mohammedans, remains."

All the palaces are gone — all the shady gardens
are laid waste ; nothing but desolation is around.
We strolled about a mixture of debris and earth, and
we knew v/e were on the site of the Sultan's palace,
for here had been found a stone with the inscription :
" The construction of this fortunate dwelling-place
was ordered by the servant of Allah, Ali, son of Abou-
Said, son of Abou-Yakoub, son of Abd-el-Hak, and
was completed in 1345."

The Girl and I were thankful there were no tiles
about. But the Professor was disposed to preach a
little on the vanity of princes.

" Now," said the Girl, " you two men sit down
and smoke your pipes, whilst I make a sketch to send
to Papa ! "

Few people go to Tlemcen. I wonder why ? As
the Girl said, it is not long there before you begin to
feel that the romance of the East is laying hold of
your soul.

Go into the lower town, see the variegated throngs
in the market-place, pass the little cupboard-shops
where the veiled Oriental women are quietly hag-
gling over the purchase of finery ; peep up the
mysterious and dark alleys. Spend an afternoon at
Ain-El-Haout, idle an hour feeding the brilliantly
scaled fish that dart in the fountains, and listen to the
legend. Long, long ago a beautiful virgin was pur-
sued by Djafar, son of the King of Tlemcen. She fled
to Ain-El-Haout, and there she escaped by turning
herself into a fish. That is why the fish are sacred,

72 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

and you would be mobbed if you were so evil-minded
as to cast a pebble at them. If you would have
scenery, go to El-Ourit, and, sitting amongst the
trees, watch the tumbling, crashing, dashing waters.

But always you will come back to Tlemcen, with
its buildings of the genuine Arab-Berber style, where
the customs of the people are just the same as through
the centuries, undisturbed by conquest and the com-
ing of Europeans, and where the blithe -hearted and
pretty children are the cause of much joy.

"I guess," said the Girl, "that if I hadn't been
born in the finest country on earth, I would like to
have been born in Tlemcen. Professor, cannot you
tell us something to prove this was the site of the
real Garden of Eden ? "

CHAPTER VI

AEAB WEDDINGS AND HOME LIFE

We had been out beyond the Fez Gate at Tlemcen
to watch the setting of the sun. Sunsets in northern
Africa are beautiful, but this was the most beautiful
of all.

It was all gold and red, like a weave of metal that
has been molten, and is still liquid, though harden-
ing, whilsc near the top was a slash of blue, and near
the bottom was a trail of green. Reds and golds
softened to opalesque, and the fire was like the
blood-gleam in a black opal. The clouds were as
filmy as the down beneath an emu's wing.

But it all went quickly. Where the sun had
dropped was like the mouth of a flaming pit. The
fire reflected on the dove -tinted clouds and yet all
were brushed with a ruddy glow. But that went
quickly also, giving place to weird sea-greens, and
died into greys and blues and then purples and black,
and then there was nothing but black.

And the night wrapped the world in a hurry.

In the city we heard the thrill of wild music, and
then we saw a blaze of torches. Rampant joyousness
clove the air. In the centre of the tumult was a man
on a horse, caparisoned gorgeously. He was a bride-
groom being taken by friends to his little Aiixb bride.
He was self-conscious, and sut his horse awkvvardly,

D* 73

74 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

for he had no grip of the reins. There were two
friends at each side of the bridle, and a friend on
either side had hold of the stirrups. The bridegroom
was pale. He was wrapped in a deep blue burnous,
and his black cap had a long silver tassel which
dangled over his forehead. The merry clamour of his
friends was deafening, and the narrow streets flamed,
with the flambeaux, and the air was fragrant with
reek and smell.

In front sedately walked an elderly man in white,
the father of the groom, and his friends, and friends
of the girl's father. Then came younger men waving
lanterns and poles decked with flowers. Next, hired
musicians — flautists and drummers and tambourine
whirlers, and they all made the loudest din they
could manage. Round about and behind the horse
— on which sat the mournful groom — were his friends
flaring coloured lights, mostly red, and tossing fire-
works about and running forward and sprinkling the
supposed happy man with rose-water.

The street was packed. At halts there were
special outbursts of pandemonium and coloured lights,
and the musicians did their best, and friends hoisted
each other upon their arms so they might kiss the
groom. There was one halt in front of the Grand
Mosque. The bewildering scene, the throng of gay-
robed Arabs, the decked bridegroom and the gor-
geous horse, the lights playing on faces and on the
overhanging trees and the white walls of the mosque
— well, it fascinated the eyes.

Of course, we joined the crowd and squeezed with
the rabble along the pressed lares. On the roof-
tops were white -cowled and veiled women — their

ARAB WEDDINGS AND HOME LIFE 75

white figures showing distinctly against the black
sky — displaying the world-wide interest of their sex
in anything to do with a wedding.

Bang went crackers, swish went the rockets, swizz
went the squibs. White lights, blue lights, green
lights, red lights ; the whole way bobbed with lights.
And the noise — it never ceased. Then we heard
shrill feminine shrieks, " You-you-you-you-you ! "
The girl-friends of the bride now crowded on the
house-top where she was. They were giving greet-
ing to the husband. " You-you-you-you ! " they
screeched with metallic insistence.

Pushing and jostling and laughing, a great con-
course was about the doorway of the house. The
groom dismounted, made a dash for the door. The
door was banged, and the girls went frantic with
their yell, " You-you-you-you ! "

Other women flitted about in the street. The
night had fallen, and they came from the trapdoors
in the walls, and moved like ghosts on a stage. Some-
times they were alone, sometimes they were accom-
panied by girls of their household, sometimes by an
ebon-complexioned Soudanese. They stood in groups
apart from the men, and their white gandouras showed
harmoniously against the dark background of the
night. It was all romantic. Some of them removed
the veil in the shelter of the dusk and revealed their
charms. But as I wandered by, their veils were
dropped. A side-glance, and each woman peeping
over the veil seemed to be looking at me with great
liquid eyes, fixing upon me the bold glance of one
conscious she could see without being seen. Often
I felt there was something uncanny about those great

76 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

eyes of the solemn women, always bright and always
black. Big, unblinking, dreamy, sensuous eyes which
filled one with a nervous curiosity as to what their
owners were thinking about.

In the afternoon I had encountered a throng of
yormg Arab women, all veiled and all screaming,
" You-you-you-you ! " and in the centre was a bundle
of hidden young womanhood. That was the bride
being taken to the bath. She had left her parents'
home, would bathe with her girl-friends, put on
clean raiment, and then be conducted to her new
home, where she would receive her husband at night.
On her way veiled women hastened from their houses
and sprinkled her with holy water as a symbol of
fertility. As she entered her new home, she broke an
egg against the wall that plenty might enter with her.

The only security in a. Mohammedan marriage is
the dowry handed over by the husband as the price
of the wife. Prices vary, A village girl can be bought
in marriage for from thirty to fifty francs. A girl who
can weave a burnous is sold for from three hundred
to eight hundred francs. At twelve years of age a
girl is valued according to her prettiness — and the
mother and sisters of a young man desiring to get
married tell him how pretty she is. But old men,
widowers, or men who want to increase the number
of their wives, or who have put their wives away,
get the prettiest girls, because, as a rule, they can
pay the biggest sum. A Mohammedan woman does
not lose her maiden name on marrying, and she has
a right to retain her own property. The mother of
a son gets jewellery from her husband ; but if she
gives birth to a girl she gets abuse.

ARAB WEDDINGS AND HOME LIFE n

Ai-ab girl babies wear talismans on their arms.
Later in life they wear them round the neck, and
when grown up they wear them on the head. Child-
hood is a very happy time for the Arab children.
There is no restraint put upon them. " They are
only unreasoning children ; let them do as they
please," is the attitude. Girls are tattooed as tribal
marks, or to resist evil spirits, when they are about
twelve years of age.

They have very pretty names : Aicha, " life " ;
Djohar, " pearl " ; Ivi-eira, " the best " ; Nedjma,
" the star " ; Safia, " the pure " ; Zohra, " flower " ;
and Yamina, " prosperous." The French are doing
a good deal towards the education of Ai'ab girls.
There are schools where they are given a simple,
useful education. In Algiers is an embroidery school,
and the young girls make hand embroidery of such
exactness and regularity that it looks as if it must
be machine-made.

IMany tears must be shed when little Djohar, aged
twelve, knows she is to be married to an old fellow
of sixty — but she does as she is told. There is an
Arab saying : " Woman flees from a white beard as
the sheep flees from the jackal." The perfect woman,
according to an Arab poet, " should laugh quietly,
should not be a gadabout, nor annoy her husband
or neighbours ; she should not have a long tongue,
or blush with difficulty. She should be a housekeeper
and give good counsel. If you meet this woman,
you will be mad with love of her ; if she leaves you,
you will die for want of her."

It is a mistake, however, to think an Arab wife
has no influence in the family. She has a good deal.

78 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

and sometimes it extends to the whole tribe. If an
Arab woman is childless, she will touch with a finger-
tip the tame lion taken by marabouts from village
to village, picking up coppers by the way. Having
done that, she will be confident her desire will be
rewarded.

Polygamy is practised — the Koran allows the
Mohammedan to have four wives. Very few have
four — the luxury is too expensive. It is no good
criticising the sons of Islam. They will say that you
can content yourself with a single wife whom you
consider as your equal. In rich European establish-
ments the servants look after the household needs.
With the Arabs, on the other hand, servants brought
in from the outside bring only trouble. Monogamy
however, is the rule. Harems are rare.

Family life, especially in the towns, is perpetually
troubled with jealousy and intrigue. Neither husband
nor wife always remains faithful, though infidelity
involves risk of life. It is said that the Arab woman,
the day's work over, murmurs this description of
her life, " Burden-bearer by day, beloved queen at
night." All the Arabs have trite sayings. Apropos
of truthful speech, the Arab who mistrusts a man
will say, " The tongue has no bones ; you can turn
it which way you please." Arab policy is expressed
in the sayings : " If you are the tent-peg, have
patience ; if you are the mallet, strike," and, " Kiss
the head that you cannot cut off," i.e. bide your time
for vengeance on the infidel.

Since the French occupation, slavery has been
prohibited. But that slavery exists, especially in
southern Algeria, is without doubt. As a rule the

ARAB WEDDINGS AND HOME LIFE 79

slaves are treated well and are contented. They
have considerable freedom, though they can be sold
to another owner. If ill-treated, a slave, by seeking
the protection of a saint, can always claim to be sold
into a new home. The slave traffic from Timbuctoo
is now stopped, but there is still a good supply of
slaves made prisoners in feuds between the tribes
of the Sahara. Hans Vischer states that the extent
of the former slave trade across the desert can be
slightly estimated by numberless skeletons which one
meets along the caravan routes south of Murzuk.
The unnecessary cruelty of the Arab traders who
drove their flocks of slave children over the waterless
roads can be understood when one bears in mind
that they could afford to lose eighty per cent, of the
children on the road, and still make a profit on the
remainder. The slave negress who bears a child to
her master is given the name of Ouem-el-Ouled
(mother of the child), and enjoys the same rights as
the lawful wife. Her son is not illegitimate, but is
one of the family, and shares the inheritance with
the other children.

On the whole, married life in Algeria has its ups
and downs, very much the same as in more civilised
countries. And this notwithstanding that husband
and wife know absolutely nothing of each other's
temperament before they are married. A woman
who wishes to gain control over her husband goes
to a negress who takes some of her hair, nail-parings,
saliva, wax from her ears, etcetera, and after various
mystic rites, makes up a pill which the wife is to
try to give to her husband with his ordinary food.
A husband on leaving home often ties a knot in a tuft

So THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

of grass. That is an omen, for if untied on his return
he assumes his wife has been unfaithful.

Arab houses are not comfortable places, and the
Arab house which is rigged up by a European in " Arab
style " is as near the real thing as an English village
in a comic opera is like a real village. The real Arab
house is a dingy, unwholesome place, despite the
fountains and the tiles and the pillars round the
court. Carpets are the only luxury of rich Arabs.
They pile them on one another, making heaps of
them, and they treat them with respect, for everyone
takes off his shoes to walk over them just as at the
door of a mosque.

There are no harems in Algeria — parts of the
house set apart for the women. When an Arab calls
upon another, the females withdraw. They never
join in the feasts of the men-folk, but they will watch
them through peep-holes. The Arab woman loves
jewellery and fine clothes, and receives her lady
friends in the afternoon, and they talk about clothes
and love-making. Dishes of sticky sweetmeats are
handed round. The guest invariably licks the dish ;
for is it not said, " Whoever eats from a dish and
licks it afterwards, the dish intercedes with Allah
for him," and her — I suppose. They sip much
sugared coffee, and puff cigarettes and sprinkle each
other with musk. An Arab woman does not think
much of a European woman unless she is decked
with jewellery. To own jewellery and not to wear
it on every possible occasion is something the Arab
woman cannot understand.

When you have an Arab meal it is well to remember
it is Arab, and not be constantly wishing European

ARAB WEDDINGS AND HOME LIFE 8i

manners were adopted. If you compare you will not
enjoy yourself. It is best to r^at according to the
custom of the natives, and enjoy the satisfaction
you are playing the Oriental. You sit on the carpet
in more or less of a circle. A dish of peppery food
is placed in the centre, and everybody helps himself.
You hold tight to your spoon whilst another dish
is provided, composed chiefly of chopped meat and
raisins mixed with olive oil. Then the kous-kous —
boiled semolina with vegetables intermixed and slabs
of boiled mutton on the top. The host helps himself
first — to indicate that the food is not poisoned —
just as it is customary to enter a room first to show
it is quite safe. You take a piece of boiled mutton
in your fist and gulp it. You make a ball of the
kous-kous and gulp that also. Then dates and then
coffee.

I had a young Arab friend, aged about twenty,
and he told me his father had arranged for him to be
mariied to the daughter of an old schoolfellow. For
some years my friend had been collecting not only
goods with which to furnish his house, but pretty
things to present to the forthcoming wife, whom he
had never seen. He would not tell me how much
his father was going to pay for the girl except that it
was many, many francs. Was she beautiful ? His
mother had reported that she was. The negotiations
had been concluded only a few days before. His
father had made a ceremonious visit to the father of
the girl ; the money matter was arranged ; then a
sheep had been killed and roasted, and a great feast
took place. Both parents solemnly announced the
betrothal.

82 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

I told him of the scene I had witnessed at Tlemcen,
and asked him if he would have anything as fine as
that?

" Yes, and finer," he exclaimed ; " my father
will go with a retinue to bring my wife. He will
take many presents for her relatives and jewels for
her. Oh I it is all arranged. My mother says she
is very beautiful, with gazelle eyes and lips of coral.
She is to have a lovely melhafa, and she Vv^ill ride on
a fine mule, and there will be music all the way.
My mother will meet her at our house, and my sisters
will take her to the bath. In the evening my friends
will take me to my bride. She is very beautiful. I
would not talk to an Arab so ; we Arabs never talk
about our women to one another. But with you, a
European, it is different."

And he, like most Arabs I met, though not placing
women on a pedestal, said he had always understood
Mohammedans treated women better than Christians
did. Women are veiled and locked in their houses
because the husbands care for them and are jealous
of them. Said Mohammed respecting women,
" Either keep them with kindness, or in kindness
part from them." And again, " Woman was made of
a crooked rib ; if you try to straighten her she breaks."
And again, " The greatest calamity to mankind is
woman." Woman is lower in faculties than a man,
and if she is killed the punishment is half that for
killing a man.

Divorce is common. The simplest plan is repudia-
tion by the man ; then, if the woman wants her full
freedom she must return the value of her dowry.
But a woman can also divorce her husband for ill-

ARAB WEDDINGS AND HOME LIFE 83

treatment, or if she discovers her husband has been
betrothed to some other woman before — a plan which
would work rather awkwardly in some " infidel "
countries. As I have said, a married woman retains
her own property. But the husband can " have the
law on her " if, being pious, she wants to give all her
money to charity — she must not give more than
one-third. When the husband dies she can claim
a third of his property.

Yet the Arab's main thought about woman is
that she can amuse him. Does not the Talmud say
that nine parts of sexual passion was given to the
Arabs, and the remaining one part is divided amongst
all the other races of the world ?

CHAPTER VII

ALGIERS IN RAMADAN

All through this hot, clammy day strange cries have
come from the Kasbah.

It is too soon in the year for the sickly, lungless
European, who must have sunshine, to begin his
" winter " in Algiers. So no quiz-eyed tourists have
been passing along the narrow ways of the Bab-a-
Zoun, or have been sipping coffee in the Bab-el-Oued.

On the square-built, white, flat-roofed houses of
the Arabs the sun has poured all day with scorching
virulence. From the dark, shadow-laden ways rise
mixed odours, stenches that are foul, scents that are
aromatic, a medley of offensiveness and deliciousness,
product only of lands where the minaret pierces the
level tops of the town and the voice of the Imam
may be heard chanting the muezzan, " Allah only
is great ; there is but one God, and Mohammed is
his Prophet ; come to prayer, come to adore ; Allah
is great."

Guttural Ai'abic has mixed with the smells of the
heat. In these pinched ways there is endless jostle
and hurry. Were you a Gulliver, and your size
proportionate to that of a tremendous creature, you
might kneel on the sands at the back of Algiers and
with one fist resting on Mount Sidi Ben Nourh and
the other crushing the trees on Mustapha Superieur,

84

ALGIERS IN RAMADAN 85

peer down into the Arab quarter and be fascinated
with the haste of human beings, Hke myriad white
ants pushing along those crooked alleys. There is
great noise.

The swarthy Arab, fleshy-lipped and lusty-eyed,
comes with an easy swing of limb down the street
of steps, the Rue de la Kasbah. His long white robe,
the burnous, hangs gracefully from shoulder to heel.
His head is swathed in white, but thick plaits of camel-
hair twist about from brow to neck. There is hauteur
in his stride, an aristocratic hoist of the chin, and
you notice his hands are soft and his fingers long.
He spits frequently. As there are two kinds of
angels, white and black, he always spits to the left,
to show he cares nothing for the black angels.

In little holes in the wall, danksome alcoves, are
shops. There is the man who sells foodstuffs, dried
fruits — even tinned things brought to North Africa
by dogs of Christians. His hand is broad and his
fingers stunt, and his countenance is of a coarser
grain : a M'ozabite, a tribe in the far south, Moham-
medan, but unorthodox. The men leave their
women-kind and journey over the Sahara to Algiers
to start shop and make their fortune in four years ;
then go back towards the Equator and buy more
wives, and are happy dozing their days in the shadow
of the date-trees.

Strange folk these M'ozabites. From the land
of M'zab they come, far south, only two thousand
five hundred strong. They are proud, clannish, and
detest other races ; but they never bring their wives
or children. They form the strictest of trade unions,
and are all organised. They govern each other

86 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

severely. They must drink neither wine nor coffee,
nor must they smoke or lead irregular lives. If so,
they are bastinadoed by other M'ozabites. The
desert part from which they come is called Hamedan
(the scorched). In the centre is a sort of circus
formed by a belt of shining rock, with steep slopes
tov/ard the interior. One who has been there says
that, seen from the exterior, or from the north and
east, this belt of rocks presents the appearance of
koubas (tombs of holy men), in stories one above
the other, without any kind of order, and looks like
an immense Arab neoi*opolis. Nature itself seems
dead. No trace of vegetation rests the eye ; even
the birds of prey seem to fly from these desolate
regions. The relentless sun throws his rays on these
walls of whitish grey rock, and produces by their
shadows the most fantastic designs. But the traveller
on reaching the summit discovers in the interior
fine, populous villages surrounded by gardens of
luxuriant vegetation relieved in dark green against
the reddish background of the river-bed.

In M'zab the women take the combings of the
hair and fling them into running w^ater, which is the
symbol of life, and will prevent baldness.

Who are the M'ozabites ? There is a tradition
they are Phcenician, and came from Tyre. The
Arabs chivvied them to the rocky land of the Hamedan.
But now they are coming back, and the Arab hates
the M'ozabite because he is commercially prosperous,
as some other people hate the Jews. An old Arab
assured me that when a M'ozabite died, donkey's
ears grew out of his head.

Slim and quick-moving come Kabyles, industrious,

ALGIERS IN RAMADAN 87

dirty warriors of the Berber race. Coal-faced negros
who have filtered across the wastes guarding Tim-
buctoo, strut, laugh and show their teeth.

Trade is busy. A sheep has been killed, and
customers are haggling over bits of the carcass.
Coppersmiths, in shops which are holes scooped out
between an oozing wall and the black earth are
hammering at their pans. At the corner of a crowded
way is a stall of fruit, purple grapes and yellow
grapes, basins of black olives, stacks of vividly red
capsicum, other stacks of the bluish aubergine or egg-
plant. A shaft of sun which falls on a thin, gimcrack,
hoisted awning breaks the glare, and suffuses the
fruit with an artistic glow. Squatting on the floor
are makers of Arab garments. Youths with grimy,
open-breasted shirts and ragged, loose knickerbockers,
and wearing skull-caps of claret hue, run barefooted
and sell sprigs of jasmine. The Arab loves the smell
of the flower, and wiU idle the sultry afternoon toying
with amber beads, reciting verses from the Koran,
and smeUing his spray of sweet jasmine. Little
donkeys, laden with bundles of charcoal, tramp the
cobbled streets, and have the curse of AHah brought
upon them when they smudge the burnous of a passing
Arab. Men carrying great bundles cry for a way to
be cleared. Water is being drawn from a sink and
carried off in quaint-shaped ewers.

Streets are tortuous, but high and straight and
white are the wafls of the houses. Most are eyeless,
for few windows break the monotony of their surface ;
but the gleams of the sun have made brilliant effects,
and out of the squalor come tones of mauve and
saiTron and indigo, a kind of incongruous harmony

88 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

which no scheme of colour could procure, but which
is just there to delight the soul of the man who owns
the beauty sense.

The air is hot and steamy. The flies are trouble-
some, and the fan must be constantly waggled to
keep them away.

From the low and heavy wooden doors emerge
Ai"ab women. All are in white. The white veil,
spanning just over the nose, falls and hides the lower
part of the face. Only the eyes can you see — large
lustrous, languorous. The long eyelashes are pencil-
touched with kohl ; paint has given the eyebrows the
arch of young moons. A woman draped in white,
veiled, with a pair of black, limpid, love-soaked eyes,
peering at you — well, you know why the amorous
young Arabian, lolling in the calm of a velvety night,
sings with a plaintive heart to mysterious eyes which
electrify the warm blood in his veins when the quick
and understood glance has flashed upon him in the
buzz of a bazaar.

The Ai'ab women slither along in heelless shoes.
Sometimes a hand is lifted to rearrange the haik.
You see fingers gii-t with gaudy and barbaric jewellery,
and the finger-nails are tinted, as with the stain of
cigarettes, with henna-dye. A woman moves the
lower part of her veil or adjar and shows a rlila, a
gauzy jacket of pink, and pendant of golden twenty-
franc pieces. Very old women, crooked and hobbling,
and wizened and pale-faced, and yet with bright
eyes lightening the wrinkled alabaster skin, do not
wear the adjar. They are too old to set aflame the
passions.

Young girls — I heard one called Ourieda (" Rose ")

ALGIERS IN RAMADAN 89

and another Guelbi (" Heart of Mine ") — with the
sun-brown of Italy on them, playful and elfish, run
about, and you see the laughter on their lips. When
Nature turns them from girls to women, though they
be but twelve years of age, no longer must they
play with the little Arab boys. They wear the veil.
They will be given in marriage to men twice, maybe
three times, their age. They are the servants, the
slaves of their husbands. Women have no souls,
according to the Moslem faith.

There is a shout, and four Arabs come hastening
down the Bab-a-Zoun, two in front, two behind, bear-
ing poles, and on the poles is a box. I look into the
box, and there among a mass of jasmine lies the
waxen figure of a dead little Arab girl being hurried
to burial, sans ceremony, except that at the
moment of lowering into the grave the shroud is
raised, and a white dove, symbol of the white, innocent
life, flies away into the free sky.

With the heat of the day the clamour grows. Up
near the old fort, the real Kasbah, there is a market.
Eternal shrill squabbling. Twice the value is asked,
half the value is offered. By the beard of the Prophet,
the merchant cannot take less ; by the beard of the
Prophet the purchaser cannot give more. But the
beard of the Prophet is ignored, for at last the baggy
white trousers of the Arab change ownership. The
new owner puts them on at once. In a corner a
barber is shaving the heads of good Mohammedans.
Near by a man with a headache is having a couple
of leeches applied to the nape of the neck.

Up the sun-baked and dusty road is the heavy-
walled fortress. Zouaves, with tasselled fezzes and

90 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

short blue vests and brilliantly red trousers and long
white gaiters, are promenading. It is eighty years
now since the French took Algiers. Up there, in that
tile -encrusted tower, with the loftily perched window,
with the bars before, was the audience chamber of
the Deys. See those heavy chains, hanging like
sullen festoons above the archway leading into the
citadel ! It was something of a democracy in the
old times of the Deys ; but democracy with a leer
about it. The poorest Arab had a right of appeal
to the Dey. But before being granted audience
he must jump and grasp those chains. Catch them
and he got audience ; miss them, and sabres clove
the life out of him. If the Dey was amiable, the
chains were lowered and the jump was easy. If the
suppliant was in disgrace, high were the chains
raised — a jump, a miss, and then the stones splashed
with blood. Romantic days of long ago 1

I have been reading a book about what happened
to the slaves, and in the hush of the warm morning
I sit by the silent Dey's palace, but can hear the
murmur of trade in the Kasbah, and watch the
merchants' ships trailing through the blue waters of
the bay into the Mediterranean. I play the boy
who has been immersed in a thrilling yarn, and I can
see the pirate craft, hull down, sails heavy, slowly
gliding into Algiers harbour with their human booty
— captives of every nation in Europe. Were there
not thirty thousand of such slaves in Algiers at one
time ? Down on the quays the wi-etches had to
declare what their rank was, duke's son or cook's
son — if it was thought they were lying, a swipe of
the bastinado was supposed to bring the truth out

ALGIERS IN RAMADAN 91

of them. Look at the procession of them whipped
up the Mount of the Kasbah to huddle in front of
the Palace ! Then out came the Dey — I am sure
he was corpulent and bearded and pock-marked, and
showed an infamous grin — and he went round and
selected one-eighth of the catch as his portion. They
were Government prisoners, and wore an iron ring
on one ankle. The others, prizes of masters and
crew, were sold by auction. It is not difficult this
warm morning to let imagination roam — after reading
that tome last night — and see the sad-faced slaves
labouring under heavy chains. The Government or
heylik slaves could exercise their own religion, and
they had a day off on Friday, the Islamic Sunday.
And the private slaves — hated because of their
Christianity, and bullied because they were slaves
— what of them ? There was a young Christian
who killed his master under provocation. With four
nails he was crucified against a wall. A red-hot iron
was pushed through his cheek to prevent him speaking,
and he was slowly done to death with fire-brands.

And the Christian women captives — well, one had
better not think about them this morning.

Do you know the story of the fan ? In the time
when Queen Victoria came to the throne, France
was represented at Algiers by a Resident. The Dey
had been squeezing money out of a Jew, and the Jew
was a French citizen. The Resident went and drank
coffee with the Dey, and wanted justice and reparation
on behalf of his countryman. " Oh ! he is only a
Jew," said the Dey. The man from France spoke
warmly. It was a warm afternoon, and the Dey

92 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

was fanning himself. The Resident grew angry, and
the Dey in wrath hit him with the fan. " Not me,
but France you have insulted," said the Resident.
The Dey retorted what he thought of France. In
time French warships crossed the Mediterranean.
There was the thunder of guns. Algiers capitulated,
and a beautiful slice of North Africa passed under
Gallic rule.

Note one thing as you wander, wonder-eyed, among
the picturesque people in the Kasbah ; no Arab is
eating, nor drinking, nor smoking. This is the fast of
Ramadan. For the length of one moon — from the
time the moon is the thinnest crescent of silver in
the blue-green of the evening till the moon wanes
and the crescent is rubbed from the face of the sky — •
nothing passes the lips of good Mussulmans during
sun-up. It is in remembrance of the time when
Mohammed was in the wilderness and came to know
Allah.

The average Moslem is a better Moslem than the
average Christian is a Christian. There are hundreds
of thousands of Christians who ignore the orthodox
observances of theu' faith.

The Moslem is always strict. Be he labouring
coolie or pasha, he breaks his fast at four o'clock in
the morning. From the moment, in the cool grey of
the coming day, he can distinguish a black thread
from a white thread he obeys the laws of Ramadan.
Be his work never so arduous, be the day scorching
and he like to faint, not a drop of water to assuage
his thirst and not a crust to stay his hunger must
pass his lips. But as sunset nears the Mohammedan
prepares to break his fast. Wlien the sun dips and

ALGIERS IN RAMADAN 93

the light reddens, the French Government fire a gun.
The Mohammedan may eat. But first he smokes a
cigarette ; then he gorges ; then he idles an hour
at an Arabic cafe.

The mosques, with massive simplicity of archi-
tecture, white and heavily domed and with graceful
minarets, are well-filled during Ramadan. Worthy
old Arabs, to whom the fast is agony, come here to
pray and to sleep. There are no pews, and the floors
are covered with carpets, some rare and good, but most
showy and modern. The Arabs lie by the pillars
and snore, and at times wake and stand up and pray,
and kneel and pray, and prostrate themselves before
Allah, whilst the face is turned to Mecca the Holy.

Dog of a Christian though I am, I love the dignity
of a mosque. I cover my dirty boots with red
slippers, so I inflict no foulness on a religious house.
The Christian removes his hat on entering a
church ; the Moslem takes off his shoes on entering
a mosque.

Though the heat pant outside, and though, in the
crooked alleys, the shrieking and clamour never end,
it is coolness and quietude in the mosque, save for
the murmur of Arabs, with snowy streaks in their
beard, reciting verses from the Koran. There is the
old mosque of Sidi Abd-er-Rheman-el-Thalebi and
the newer mosque, Djema-el-Kebir, where also is
an Arab court of justice. Disputing Mussulmans
submit their cases to men learned in the law of the
sacred Koran. There is the mosque of Djema-el-
Djedid, erected centuries ago by a Genoese ; but he
built it in the form of a Greek cross, and when the
Dey saw this he cut off his head.

94 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

Night has come and the moon swings like an
electric globe over the rippled waters of the Bay of
Algiers.

The lights dance in a thousand windows of the
white to^vn — but only dainty, dim points in the
windows of the Arab houses. No women in the
streets now. They, like ghosts, have flitted away.

But the Mohammedan men, having feasted, are
out in the Bab-el-Oued, thronging their favourite
cafes ; they squat on small stools, and loll on mats
by the wall-side in the streets. They sip sweet tea ;
they suck at water-pipes. A noisy rascal of a lad is
running about with a pan of charcoal giving new light
to the smokers. The lamps seem to accentuate
the shadows in the recesses of Moorish doorways.

Curious, mysterious, Oriental is the scene. The
loose, white draperj% the voluminous and sagging
seroual, or trousers, the calm eyes and the passive
features, the distant mournful song of a lover, the
croak of a blind beggar, the wistful lights — well, it
is an experience to sit in the group and listen to
the throaty Arabic talk, and see a young Arab man
greet his father with a kiss on the brow, and the
father answer the salute with a kiss on the young
man's elbow. Two men are toying with a happy,
tame little lamb which has a ribbon about its throat.
It will be sacrificed when Ramadan is over.

By nine o'clock the mob of cafe-haunters thins.
There must be sleep and another meal before the
sun rises, and then complete abstinence for fourteen
hours.

European Algiers has been keeping no Ramadan.

ALGIERS IN RAMADAN 95

Let us to the Place dii Gouvernement, and, amid
the flare of a little bit of transferred Paris, push
through Frenchmen and Arabs and Spaniards and
Italians and Maltese and Jews, who love Algiers
because tobacco is cheap and the sun shines for
nothing.

There is mirth, and there are oaths by Allah, by-
Santa Madonna, and by Christo.

The trees whisper with the soft breeze from the
sea. It is cool, and European Algiers — which is not
given to much religion — is out of doors. The little
round, marble-topped tables are laden with absinthe
and pretty syrups and ices and beer. The men, in
coloured shirts and straw hats, play with cigarettes.
The 'women, so quickly refined to beauty in the
fragrant clime of Algeria, are in soft dresses and are
full of gaiety. At one cafe a band is crashing waltz
music. At another is an open-air cinematograph
show. I catch glimpses of snow scenes in Russia.
Electric cars scurry and clang. The bleat of the
picture postcard seller is heard. There is the sing-
song of the newspaper lad with French journals
which have arrived from Marseilles to-day. A bit
of the Parisian boulevards has been brought over to
the North African coast.

But the Arab is standing on the house-top, praying
for the fifth time to-day, for darkness now covers
the earth : " Allah only is great ; there is but one
God, and Mohanuned is his Prophet ; Allah is great."

CHAPTER VIII

AN ARABIAN DAY ENTERTAINMENT*

He and she — he an EngUshman and she an American,
and their relationship that of husband and wife. He
was a county man at home, hunted a Uttle, shot a
little, golfed a little. She was an impressionable
woman from the restless West.

She was a patriotic American, but she just
loved Europe and its funny old ways.

They were both young and agreeable, and had
plenty of money, and, like the people in the story-
books, lived very happily. For two years after their
marriage the impressionable little woman led her
husband about Europe, and he, easy-going, was
delighted to go where she wanted.

At first she thought London was the ideal spot.
But London was too big, and she soon realised that
endeavours to develop her individuality were not
successful. Paris won her heart — she was prepared
to live and die in Paris. That lasted for four long
months. She was enraptured with Venice, and wanted
to settle for ever and ever in one of the old palaces.

* It is well to explain that this chapter is a composite picture,
drawn from many persons, and is intended to show how the fascina-
tion of the Orient affects some people. No portrait is attempted,
though certain features may be recognised by residents in Algiers.

J. F. F.
96

AN ARABIAN ENTERTAINMENT 97

Later it was Rome which captivated her. But in
time the monuments became " old stones." They
moved on.

The usual fate brought them to Algiers, and, like
so many others, they clapped their hands, and agreed
it was the most divine spot on earth. The wistful-
ncss of the East, its quietness, its glorious sunlight,
its fantastic Oriental architecture, its mystery, the
garb of the people, the seclusion of the women, the
feeling that this was the land of romance, captivated
the emotional young woman. She was in a rhapsody
of enthusiasm. Her English husband was delighted ;
he said it " wasn't half bad."

She read Pierre Loti. She read novels which
breathed the " atmosphere " of the East. She
talked about Haroun-al-Raschid as though he had
been a partner in her father's business at Pittsburg.
She never wearied of wandering in the noisy Kasbah,
and she gushed all the time. Her soul and her heart
and her mind were really all one ; and she was
intoxicated. Algiers was all so bewildering, so like
her girlish dreams when she read the " Arabian
Nights' Entertainments." She told her husband she
wanted to read Sir Richard Burton's unexpurgated
edition. He thought she had better not. She did
not see why not, as she was a married woman and
an American girl, and she guessed she was as capable
of understanding Sir Richard Burton as a good many
men — so there ! The Englishman refilled his pipe,
and said he would see if a copy could be obtained.
A copy never was obtained.

They had enjoyed one of their customary day's
idling in the native quarter and buying carpets and

98 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

old candelabra which had once been in a mosque,
and antique armour and wonderful carpets, and old
silver and brass-work, and native jewellery " just
too sweet for anything." They had been doing this
kind of thing for a fortnight. The wife chose and
the husband paid — and their rooms at the expensive
hotel up at Mustapha Superieur were littered with
purchases. He was too amused, in a stolid way, at
her enchantment to raise objection. Only once, when
he barked his shins over some Andalusian armour,
did he inquire, " What on earth do you think we are
going to do with all this rubbish ? "

It was after dinner, and they sat in long wicker
chairs on the balcony of their hotel. The bay shone
like enamelled silver beneath the moon, and the white
houses of Algiers, with twinkling lights here and there,
had a sort of ghostly, evanescent haziness about them.
Somewhere was the cry of Arab music. The night
was warm and sensuous, and the little woman bathed
her whole being in enjoyment of it all.
" I'd like to live in Algiers," said she.
" Humph ! " said he.
" Not, of course, in an hotel," said she.
" Well, where ? " asked he.

" Well, I think it would be lovely to rent an
Arab house — a real Arab house — and to furnish it
with Arab things and to have Arab servants, and
to have Arab food and sherbet, and — ^and — of course,
there would have to be a fountain in the centre
of the yard — it would be so Eastern to have a
fountain trickling close by whilst I reclined upon
a divan."

" Would it ? " said he.

AN ARABIAN ENTERTAINMENT 99

" Well, wouldn't it ? " she asked.
Again he said, " Humph ! "

She had her way. She always did have her way.
In her little heart she boasted she knew how to manage
her big English husband.

Once he began to move he moved steadily and
purposefully. There were plenty of Arab houses, but
it was not easy to find the house which fitted the
Arab house which the young woman had pictured
in her fanciful mind after heavy reading of light
literature. Of course, it was to be all white — " a
symphony in white " she called it — and it must have
a Moorish doorway ; she thought the Moorish arch
so soothing. Then there must be a long passage ;
she did not mind it being dark and cool so that
it opened — through another Moorish arch — right
upon the courtyard, which was to be flooded with
sunshine in the daytime and with moonlight at
night. The pavement was to be of black and white
squares of marble, and the fountain was to be of
marble, though she would prefer alabaster, some-
thing that had once been in a pasha's harem. In
the basin of the fountain, fish were to sport — she had
read there were sacred fish in Algeria, and she would
like her husband to get some of those. The pillars
round the court ought to be alabaster, fluted if
possible. The apartments were to be cool, and were
to look over the bay. There were to be carved
roofs, arabesque decorations and the windows were
to be prettily latticed. Of course, there must be a
marble bath — there was no fun living in an Arab
house without a marble bath.

100 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

She made her husband understand she was a
sensible and reasonable little woman ; she only
insisted on the essentials.

As luck would have it, there was not to be let at
the time any Arab house that came anywhere near
the specifications. He said they had better " chuck
it." But she said that she liked Algiers and she
was going to stay there, even though it was in the
role of a grass widow. So they got a house. There
was no Moorish doorway ; it was inartistically
square-cornered. But the place was white, almost
a symphony in white — that is, it was mostly white
except where the whitewash had rubbed off, and
there were head-marks on the walls of one room.
A pail of whitewash would put that right. The
courtyard was red-brick ; but the dear little accom-
modating woman said it was a pleasant contrast to
the white. The pillars were neither marble nor
alabaster ; they were stucco, and they bulged alder-
manically in the middle. The bath was — well, it
was a cemented chamber, and did not smell over
sweet.

" It is full of possibilities," said she, after viewing
the house ; " it can be made into a dream."

" You've noticed the sanitary arrangements are —
er — primitive ? " he said.

" "WTiy " she asked, " will you spoil the poetry of
it all by your practical, unimaginative remarks ?
Don't you really want us to spend a happy time
living the life of the picturesque Arabs ? "

" Oh, I'm game ! " he declared.

So it was settled. She -wTote long letters to her
dearest friends in the United States, all about how

AN ARABIAN ENTERTAINMENT loi

he and she were going to Hve the life of the real
East, and she knew her dearest friends would be
jaundiced with envy. Here is an extract from one
of the letters :

" Such fun 1 But I'm just tired to death. We're
furnishing. We don't have carpets ; we have a lot of dear
old stuffy rugs. And as the Arabs never have pictures,
we have the walls hung with prayer-cai'pets — you know,
the things the Mohammedans kneel on when they bump
their heads in the direction of Mecca. And we've got
such wonderful brass lanterns so that the light will be
soft. We've made up our minds we are going to like the
Arab food, and we are going to have Arab servants. Of
course, we shall have to learn Arabic. And he, instead of
smoking a nasty pipe, is to have a nice water pipe with a
long tube — I'm going to buy that as a surprise for his
birthday — and sometimes we are going to dress like Arabs.
Oh I my dear, can you imagine me in great baggy red
silk bloomers ? And I'm going to learn one of their musical
instruments, and won't it be splendid on moonlight nighls
to sing Arabic love songs ? He is not so fond of Arab
music as I am sure I shall be. And we are making ever so
many friends. There are very nice people here in the
English colony, though the women do claw one another
like cats, and because I'm American I'm very popular,
and I'm going to give Arabic entertainments, and make
everybody wish to be invited, and I may dress in Arabic
style when I entertain, and it will be much nicer than a
real Arab house, for we will have men and women to be
bright. I ought to tell you that all the rooms open out
on to a balcony ; it's a two-storied house, and so on the
hot nights we will be able to sleep out and listen to the
trickle of the fountain. There is something wrong with
the fountain just now, but I guess it will be all right when
it has been seen to. I shall study Mohammedanism and
tell you all about it. It will be fme giving old civilisation
a push-back and yielding oneself up to tlie loveliness of
tlic purple EasL. We are going to live the simple life of

102 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

the Arabs. And I've got the most lovely set of cute
coffee cups, and the loveliest spoons inset with coral. He
has bought me two lovely gold brooches, just the same as
the Arab women wear on the desert. I'm sure you must
be just mad to come out here. You would find it so restful.
Now I must rush of! to buy some hilaid tables, all glistening
with mother-of-pearl, and I have not a minute to call my
own."

He and she were a great success in Algiers.

Others of the foreign colony had bits of Algeria
about them. They had nothing but Algeria. She
was gay, frolicsome, inventive, resourceful. There
were people who smiled, and said their fondness for
the native life was all affectation. She smiled back.

It was her delight to adorn herself in Ai'ab garb,
to deck herself with Arab jewellery, to put kohl on
her eyes and henna on her fingers, and to entertain
her friends wdth native cakes and curious dishes, and
have sweet drinks in chased silver goblets and a
silent-footed Arab servant to move round and pour
rose-water over their fingers.

Once or twice, in private, she induced him to
dress in Arab style ; but he positively refused to
appear like that before his friends. She said he
looked noble ; but he said he felt like an ass.

Her dinner-parties were much talked about.
There were differences of opinion about the native
food, but general agreement that it was an interesting
experience. Once she sent out mvitations to a party,
and all the guests were to be in native costume.
Unfortunately everybody had a prior engagement for
that night.

Her great triumph was that, on two occasions,
she had walked and ridden through the streets of

AN ARABIAN ENTERTAINMENT 103

Algiers in native costume. She was so pleased that
she had her photograph taken — though of her only
a pair of eyes could be seen over the veil — and she
sent copies to all the American friends whose
addresses she could remember. Under this was her
name in Arabic ; but this was written by her teacher
in the language.

The man said it was not a bad joke.

She revelled in the life. She read many books in
French on native customs. One evening, as he and
she were reclining on the house-top, she announced
her belief in charms and omens and sand divination.
Her retort to his criticism was that it was much
more sensible than palmistry. The next day he had
to roam the Kasbah till he bought her a charm that
would keep off the evil eye. He did not know what
the evil eye was, and he was sceptical about disaster
if the evil eye got on ; but she said she must have
the charm. She got it.

Now he says it was the charm that did the mischief.
He goes so far as to say that it had an objection to
be worn by a Roumi. She says that is just all his
silliness.

For about six weeks she was in a crescendo of
delight. She was sure the Eastern life suited her
nature, and she was surprised so few Europeans
followed it.

Then things remained stationary for a fortnight.

After that came the diminuendo of enthusiasm.
She didn't say anything ; but he noticed that for
a week she never donned the Ai-ab dress. Her little
bursts of glee were not so frequent, and the intervals
were gradually extended.

104 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

" Say," she remarked one morning, " when you
are down town you might try to get hold of some
good EngUsh or American novels."

" \^Tiat ! have you read all those books about
the charm of the East ? "

" No, I've not read them all, but I've got a sort
of idea I would like to read a good novel about home.
This is a real beautiful life, but we ought not to
forget home, ought we ? "

" Certainly not ! " said he. And he came home
with an armful of Tauchnitz editions.

" Do you know you are getting stout ? " he
observed that afternoon. " I suppose it is the kous-
kous.^^

" Heavens ! " she exclaimed, " Do you think so ?
Of course, I've read that kous-kous is fattening.
They give a lot of it to young girls to fatten them
before they are married — how disgusting ! "

" What do you say to us going along to the Hotel
St. George for dinner ? " he asked casually.

" It would be splendid ! " she cried. " They
might reserve us a table. Will you — oh ! I forgot
you cannot telephone. What a nuisance it is not
having the telephone in the house ! "

" Hardly Eastern, you know," he remarked.

" What has that got to do with it ? Why, I
might be taken ill in the night, and you would be
unable to get a doctor here because we had no
telephone. You don't know what inconvenience I've
been put to. Besides, because we are living Eastern,
that is no reason why we should make ourselves
uncomfortable . ' '

" Oh, certainly not ! "

AN ARABIAN ENTERTAINMENT 105

He was silent for a time. Then he asked, " Do
you happen to know where my pipes are ? "

" I'll get you them," said she, jumping up. " Do
you know I think a pipe suits you better than that
hubble-bubble — it always makes a noise as though
somebody needed to blow their nose. What dress
shall I wear for dinner ? "

" Oh ! I should think that Paris one of cream
and gold."

" You know you have got good taste," she laughed,
and ran away. He scribbled a note to the hotel
and hunted up a servant.

Well, naturally — being a discerning reader — you
see the end of it. It was not that they disliked
*' the Easternness of it all," but habits got in front of
Arab charm. So he wrote a letter to his brother
in England : —

'o'

" We shall be back In time for a bit of shooting and
I'd be glad if you'd give an eye to the place being in order
for our return. "We are coming back earlier than we
intended, but the fact is we are a bit fed up with Algiers.
Algiers is all right, but we went the pace a bit too strong.
You know what the little woman is like — all nerves and
hnpressionism. Don't you chaff her when we get back
or I'll break your head. It was rather sporting at first
living as Arab and Arabess in an Arab house, but it was
like playing at theatricals all day long. I think she liked
it at first, but I soon sickened. No smoking-room and
no decent saddle-bag chair — nothing but a lot of beastly
rugs and cushions to sprawl on. No wall-paper ; white-
wash covered with mats and panels with Arabic inscriptions
which nobody could read. No decent table, but a lot of
brown wood carved tables with bits of oyster shell stuck
In thoni like almonds in toffee. Not a decent-sized English

E*

io6 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

coffee cup in the place, but a lot of little things similar
to egg-cups with the bottom knocked off. No electric
bells, so we had to shout for the native, and when he came
you weren't able to tell him what you wanted. No electric
light, nothing but glimmering Oriental lamps which only
showed how little you could see. To please her, I occasion-
ally put on Arab clothing, a burnous — that's a sort of Arab
frock coat, but you feel you are spending the day in a
bath-robe. The bath — what a lot of rot is written about
Oriental baths ; no hot tap, no cold tap even — the water
had to be brought In pails and the hot water prepared in
the kitchen. As for the sanitary arrangements — the
County Council would be down on us at home if we had
not something a hundred times better.

" We leave for Marseilles next Wednesday. I've had
a dealer chap in this morning, and I've sold everything
for just about a fifth what I gave. I'm told I'm jolly
lucky to get that. If you know anybody who wants an
Arab house, they can have this, rent free, for over eighteen
months ; we took this shop for two years. She's not
bringing any of the Oriental rubbish home except a few
trinkets. She is very popular with the colony, for she
is giving presents to everybody. I thought at first I
would have a little trouble in getting her away ; she was
so gone on Arab life. But she has had enough of it. She
was saying this morning it does not fit in with her scheme
of life, though I'm blessed if I know what that is. Her
ambition now is to write a magazine article showing up
all those writing johnnies who scribble books about the
Orient. She says they exaggerate and put on the colour
a bit too thick. She says these books make people want
to travel when they would be much better at home. I'll
wire you from Paris when to expect us."

CHAPTER IX

BY DILIGENCE TO THE SOUTH

The French are direct descendants from the Romans
as road-makers. The roads they have built in Algeria
and Tunisia are the best roads out of Europe, and
better than half of those in Europe. Messieurs, your
roads are magnificent.

Civilisation, represented by many horse-power
motor-cars, goes rushing in a cloud of dust towards
the desert. But motor-cars are for the opulent.
Nobody ever heard of an opulent author. So in
Algeria, when I was not travelling by train — they
have good trains in Algeria — or slouching over the
sands with a camel caravan, I journeyed by diligence.

Now, the stage coaches which run in Algeria must
have been shipped across the Mediterranean just
about the time steam locomotion was introduced into
France, and the coaches were forty years old then.
None of your light, easy-springed coaches in which
you span passes in European tourist haunts — com-
paratively up to date notwithstanding their dusty
cushions and rope-repaired harness — but big and
broad like a barge, with a tremendous cave of a hood,
which carries merchandise or passengers, and which
is never full.

There are two things in this world in which, no

matter how packed, there is always room for some-

107

io8 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

thing else — a kit-bag and an Algerian stage-coach. I
have seen the diligence crowded with poor Europeans
and Arabs, one artist and one author, until there
was nowhere to put your feet, and you were sure
your cramped knees were aching towards bigness,
growing bigger and bigger with pain until you feared
they would never straighten, but swell to the size
of knobs on willow-trees. Yet there was always
room for six more Arabs.

With the courtesy due to foreigners, we were
promised the best seats on the coach — two places
behind the driver. But we must be ready at six-
thirty in the morning. We were gratified. We were
up at half -past five, and the untidy Frenchwoman at
the inn got us coffee and we munched a couple of
dry rolls and hulked our bags down the road.

There was the coach, a mighty red and yellow
vehicle, like a relic of the seventeenth century, but
its redness and its yellowness numbed by years of
accumulated dust. The hind door had been opened
and shut so often and joggled so much that it had
grown careless, and Vv^ould not shut like an ordinary
door. The top part lurched forward, and so checked
the other part getting into its place. But if you gave the
door a hoist it would get into groove all right, though
there was no carefulness about the fit. Once there
had been a glass window — but that must have been
a couple of generations ago ! Perhaps once upon a
time there had been windows at the side. None now.
There were latticed wooden blinds to be raised to
keep out the sun, though, when they were raised,
bits of them protruded just like the windows in the
decrepit four-wheel cabs of London, and you were in

BY DILIGENCE TO THE SOUTH 109

constant trepidation lest they would rattle themselves
into the roadway. Suggestive of an enormous bundle
thrown on top, a bulging balloon of a hood was above,
and made the diligence look top-heavy.

Well, there she stood in the roadway, and there
silent Arabs squatted by the wall. There were no
indications of the diligence starting. Nobody knew
anything about when it would start. We sat on our
portmanteaux, smoked cigarettes, and said it was
nice to be in a land where time did not count.

In half an hour a podgy Frenchman with no
collar appeared — ^and the gentleman who had pro-
mised us the best seats. Ah, messieurs were early I
But when would the coach start ? Immediately !
Then we waited another half-hour. Five grey and
scraggy horses appeared. Hurrah ! But there was
something wrong with the harness, and there was
difficulty in finding the necessary twine to repair it.
Three horses were attached to the coach and two
were leaders. But one of the leaders had a loose
shoe, and the scrubby-chinned driver said he could
not go on. But the collarless Frenchman said it
would be all right. They argued, with gesticulations,
for ten minutes. The driver gesticulated the most,
and he won. Another horse was brought. We
hoisted our bags to the roof. We saw the inside of
the coach stuffed with Ai'abs. We saw the hood
also stuffed with Arabs until they could not move.
Then it was stuffed again with sacks and boxes of
merchandise. Then more Arabs climbed in. It was
wonderful. It was marvellous as a conjuring trick.
On the seat behind the driver was an hirsute old
Frenchman, a gendarme, with all his belongings, and

no THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

the two foreigners. The hood came in a curve over
us, so that if we wanted to see ahead it was necessary
to bend forward until the chin got to the level of one's
knees. The roof of the coach cut like a board across
the small of the back ; still one could recline against
the pack of Arabs. They did not protest or inquire
where one was pushing ; they did not mind in the least.

A grimy letter-box was attached to the side of
the diligence. The driver turned a handle and relieved
a brake from the iron-shod wheels. He cracked his
whip. We were off. Not at break-neck speed. The
horses did not scamper, and the coach did not sway.
The animals ambled and the coach creaked lum-
brously, and our speed was something under four
miles an hour.

Out upon the sun-burnt wilderness. The driver
swore at his horses, but the horses did not under-
stand his tongue. Anyway, they took no notice. The
sinuous, chalky road curved and surged toward
eternity. The heat of the day grew and the hot
earth quivered. And we rumbled on. The Ai-abs
under the hood curled themselves into balls and
went to sleep. A trunk on an upper shelf fell upon
the stomach of one of the sleepers with a thud ; but
he was impervious to disturbance.

Mounted Arabs scampered by on restless steeds.
Poor, thin peasants trotted by the side of diminutive
donkeys laden with wood. A camel caravan was
slowly wending its way over the desert. At intervals
were the wide -stretching black tents of Arab encamp-
ments. The women turned their backs. The children
ran forward with glee, and the dogs barked. And
we rolled on and on.

BY DILIGENCE TO THE SOUTH m

I felt drowsy. But my neighbour, the gendarme,
was busy. He had a hunk of bread, a garhc-flavoured
sausage, and a bottle of red wine. Then he dozed
also, leaning heavily against me. All the Arabs were
in the land of Nod. Now and then the driver gripped
the reins between his knees, twirled a cigarette
between his fingers, lit it, puffed, cracked his whip,
swore at his horses. But they kept an even pace.
It was a sultry day.

Dark clouds were sailing across the sky, and when
they got before the face of the sun the eyes felt
relieved. At one point an Arab was doing rough
ploughing with a couple of oxen and a crude wooden
plough. It was slow work.

We overtook an Arab family on the move. The
ladies were mounted on slim-legged camels, and they
had a sort of huge beehive structure to shield them.
But the curtains were thrown on one side. Veils
had been removed, and though the women never
looked our way a side-glance told they were pretty.
Some had children, and others played with puppy-
dogs. The servant women walked : short, stalwart,
olive-coloured women in blue checked skirts. A flock
of sheep was being driven along with the caravan, and
black ribbons had been fastened by the women to
the rams, which meant the bringing of good luck.

Rumble, rumble ! We were crawling across the
world — a mere speck of a diligence moving slowly
over a land from which all nutriment had been
scorched. My seat was uncomfortable, but I dozed,
with fitful starts and sudden thoughts that I was
being precipitated from some fearsome height.

A move round a hill, a groaning across a bridge

112 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

beneath which is a dry river-course, and we have
reached an ugly village. Yonder is a factory. Here-
abouts much alfa grass grows, capital stuff to be
beaten into pulp for the manufacture of paper. The
firm is French, but the workmen are either Italians
or Spaniards. Catch Frenchmen living in a hole like
this where there is no boulevard, no bands, no women !
But there is a shoddy inn. Our bones crack as
we climb down amongst a horde of Arabs. A
pasty-faced woman smiles on us. Dejeuner ? Cer-
tainly,

The room is almost dark — to keep the flies quiet.
The table -covering is oilcloth, and the cutlery is the
roughest. But the dame gives us good bread and a
bottle of wine ; she puts a tin of sardines before us,
presents a ragout, makes an omelette, and provides
a dish of fresh figs. An excellent dejeuner for a
village on the desert. Coffee ? Certainly, messieurs.
Cognac ? Oui, messieurs.

But the flies — the scourge of flies — the millions of
flies ! May the maledictions of all mankind be
levelled against those flies ! Notwithstanding the
dark room, the place was full of them. The waving of
a hand in front of the face did not discourage them.
When they could not attack elsewhere, they ripped
bits off one's most delicate flesh through one's socks.

Fresh horses. Up we climbed to our seats again.
The diligence creaked. But it rolled on. It was
mid -day, and the air was dry. The country was a
piece of the world's rubbish-heap — sand and stones,
stones and sand, and the pale white road stretching
endlessly through it all. A sleepiness rested upon
everything.

BY DILIGENCE TO THE SOUTH 113

Of course, I drowsed. The sweltering heat, the
early rising, the luncheon, the coffee and cognac —
of course I dozed. And when I awoke, how my
bones ached ! With what difficulty I stretched
my limbs ! When would we reach the halting-
place ?

A black mark on the horizon — ^like a resting goat.
Trees ! An oasis was in sight. My eyes strained
towards them. But the horses, laggard beasts,
had no enthusiasm. Three miles an hour they
went. I caught a side glimpse of a horse. Its eye
was closed, and I verily believe it was sleeping as
it ran.

Here was the little town of mud houses. The
streamlets were trained through gardens, and the
gardens blossomed beautifully. The red pome-
granates were every\vhere. An avenue of trees.
Whip, hurry crack ! The driver would have liked to
have arrived in style. The horses were morose. A
little market-place, thronged with Arabs and mostly
selling sheep. And most of the women going about
uncovered. And a little French hotel — with cool
drink to be obtained.

Far were we from the busy world. And, as we
sipped our absinthe, we watched the easy-going
Orient. Here also, far south, as everywhere, the
traders were the Jews. Stout Jewesses sat in front
of their houses. They were gorgeously attired in
flowered frocks and velvet jackets, and their hair
and their ears and their necks and their wrists were
heavy with golden ornaments.

A walk in the evening. The mosques were the
same as millions of other mosques. We strolled

114 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

across a Moslem graveyard. The graves were shallow,
the cofhn lids had been broken, many skeletons were
to be seen. But there was a tomb of a marabout,
mud-built, and from all parts of the kouha stuck
spikes — like almond points in a tipsy-cake. We
crawled in by the low door, and beyond the screen
saw a bundle where we knew rested the saint. Bits
of rag were tied to the screen. When anyone ails,
it is customary to bring a shred of clothing and fasten
it to the screen. That means the saint will do
something to appease the suffering. Outside we
asked an old Arab what was the name of the
marabout. He did not know, but he was a holy
man who lived a long time ago.

Away south, where the night is as balmy as the
day. We dawdled the hours after dinner, and
watched a j'oung French officer, gradually getting
drunk, making love to the Frenchwoman behind the
bar. Night came on, and the little town sank to
sleep, except at the French hotel, where the poor
Europeans drank and smoked and played cards.
The moon hung like a great electric globe in the
heavens.

Another diligence was starting at midnight for
a ten-hours' journey still farther south.

The oil lamps attached to the coach were yellow
and sickly and mean. We stood about waiting for
the diligence to get away. A chill came into the
air and we shivered. For our clothing was light ; our
baggage was scant ; we had no overcoats with us.
But we paid a little extra, and that entitled us to
travel in the coupe, a tiny panel of a place at the

BY DILIGENCE TO THE SOUTH ii3

front of the coach under the driver. The handle
had gone from one of the doors, so that it had not
been opened for years. The seat was hard ; the place
was all apertures. There was straw on the floor : the
windows, opaque with filth, rattled and refused to
remain up.

The pair of us felt cold, shiveringly cold, as we
crouched in our box, and the old diligence went on
its way. In the dark we rummaged in our baggage
for a candle. With the haft of a penknife we stuffed
our pyjamas into the aforementioned apertures.
They worked loose, and the first intimation we got
was our pyjamas flaunting full like undergarments
on a clothes-line. However, we made the stuffing
effective. We smoked. With the rough ceremony
of tramps, we ate bread and potted meat and munched
chocolate, and drank from a bottle and smoked —
chiefly we smoked. We tried to sleep, but we were
already sore, and the jolting made us more sore.
We did not say we wished we had not come, but we
regretted we were not wealthy and could have
travelled by automobile. We soothed ourselves by
saying that, after all, this was a much more interest-
ing way of travelling than dashing along in a motor-
car seeing precious little.

We lowered one of the windows — merely to
provide a change. The wind was blowing, and our
candle, stuck in a wedge of the window, began to
spray grease. I blew it out.

What moonlight ! The world was bathed in
moonlight. The desert was silvered with moon-
light.

The yellow lamps flickered. The crunch of the

ii6 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

slow-revolving wheels and the steady rap of the
horses' hoofs on the metallic road appeared only to
direct attention to the all-pervading silence. And
mounted, armed Arabs were trotting on the desert
on either side of the road. We were carrying the
mails, and there might be robbers about. Those
Arabs, wrapped in their white burnouses and with
gleaming rifles on their shoulders, were uncanny —
so quiet were they as their horses ran over the
yielding sand.

A flame on the desert — and we rattled past a
camel caravan resting for the night. The flare
illumined the dark countenances of the cameleers.

Morning came with a green and a pink glow.
When the sun peeped over the world it sent the
shadow of the diligence stretching across the desert
to the length of the Eiflel Tower. A bleached, sad,
sunshiny land. The bones of animals which had
fallen by the way were often seen. And the horses
kept their even pace.

A square hovel and a yard where the horses were
changed. A blear-eyed man was in charge, and we
inquired if he could make us coffee. No, he could
not. Europeans seldom came that way, and it was
not worth while to make it for the Arabs who
passed.

Worn with headache, we climbed up under the
hood of the diligence. There was more air there
than in the coupe. As the day grew, the freshness of
the new day withered. The horses crawled.

Ah, yonder was our destination ! We knew the
oasis by the dark spot of foliage. There we would
wash and eat and lie down and sleep.

BY DILIGENCE TO THE SOUTH 117

How slow were the horses ! Three miles — possibly
not much more than two miles — an hour. They were
sorry scrags for that last stage. From the time we
saw the oasis till we reached it was three hours.
The sun was high and the heat surged in waves, and
the desert all around breathed like a furnace.

CHAPTER X

THE END OF RAMADAN

The breath of the hot day, the warm sigh of the
sand, is still in the air.

Night is coming quickly over the desert, as though
Allah were drawing a thin veil over the loved world.
The sun has gone, with the dignity of the desert as
its grave, and a strange white light stretches over
the place where the flame lowered. Maybe it was
once a blue light, long ago — ten minutes, perhaps —
but now it is silvery white, with no haze. Above,
the sky is deep blue velvet, and yonder, eastward,
like the press of a large finger-nail in the blue, is the
ring of the new moon.

Very thin, like a half-loop to enclasp a woman's
neck, the little ring of the moon hangs from heaven.
The children of Mohammed all the world over are
looking at that little loop of the moon. They have
waited for it so patiently, so long, but with firm
faith in the goodness of Allah.

When the last moon was born they began the
fast of Ramadan. From sun-heave to sun-dip no
food touched their lips, no sip of water touched
their tongue. So commanded the Prophet, to teach
abstinence, hunger-bearing ; to nurture self-control
by fasting through the scorching hours with no
complaining, but with prayers of thankfulness to the

ii8

THE END OF RAMADAN 119

Most Merciful One. That moon waxed and waned
and went.

Now the sight of the new moon tells that Ramadan
is closed.

Tliough night comes, the air is warm and sensuous.
Still is everything save the hurry of the brook,
and the splash of water over the stones ; and the little
gurgles of the eddies — as though elves were laughing,
but subdued in their joy, not wanting to be heard —
seem to be saying, " Did you ever know the world
so still as it is to-night ? "

I walk through the lanes of Old Biskra. They are
crooked, and all the walls are high and of sun-baked
bricks. Some Arab maidens, too young to need the
veil to hide them from men's eyes, have been drawing
water from the brook, and stand in the gloom of a
date-palm. There are many palm-trees, not straight
but willowy, and over the high dun walls they grace-
fully lean. No sun, no moon, and yet in the
mysterious, clear, half-light shadows seem to fall.

There are long, uncertain lanes. Low, broad
doors indicate entrances to Arab houses. They are
all closed. There are no windows, no bird chirps,
nor is there the song of a frog. The palms are as
still as though their spreading fronds were stencilled
against the sky. No one is about. Old Biskra, on
the edge of the Algerian desert, is like a forsaken
city, a city stricken dead — only the husk of a city.
Is that a little shiver I feel, this warm, calm even-
tide ?

Listen !

Shrill, but far away, you can hear it, melancholy
but melodious. Oiily through the clear dry air o£

120 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

Africa does the voice carry like that. It is the sound
of the muezzan. It is the fourth prayer of the day,
the aseur — so clear, so low, so far away. It is
beautiful. It is sad. But the fast of Ramadan is
finished and millions of Mohammedans are happy
to-night.

In the swift enfolding dusk — the mud of the
walls, the green of the trees, the grey-white of
the sky commingling — there is a sudden splash of
crimson — bright, dazzling crimson. There is some-
thing pellucid in the coming night, so clear is that
crimson, so distinct is the Ai'ab woman on the flat
house-top, with her haik away, standing there in
crimson jacket and spreading crimson pantaloons.

Her skin is soft brown. I can see it. Her hair
has the glossy blackness of a raven. Big amber
beads encircle her neck. There are gold ornaments
to her ears and gold bangles are on her wrists.

So she stands, silently looking over the great
silent world — this Ai-ab woman in crimson. Has she
ever seen the world — known anything of it but the
burnt desert and the burnt hills and the oasis of the
date-palms ? She hears my tread. She turns and
is alarmed. She is an Arab woman, and her face
has been seen by a man. Shame, shame ! She runs
and is gone.

How quickly the night closes in ! How peaceful,
soul-soothing it is to walk these silent lanes of Old
Biskra at the end of Ramadan. What feasting, what
laughter, what joy in the Moslem houses behind
these solemn brown walls I But outside all so silent.

Passing a little shadowed break in the wall, I
start. It is only an Arab saying his prayers. He is

THE END OF RAMADAN 121

kneeling on his rough mat, and his hands are upUftedc
He takes no heed — nor do I trespass upon him with
more than a sidelong glance. But I think there is
something exquisite in a faith whose devotees go
into the open, bare -footed and humble, and give
thanks for the goodness of the day.

Now the white has gone from the west, and all
the sky is hooded with velvet. And the rim of the
moon shines like the glint in the whirl of a sabre.
And to the north beyond El Kantara, the gate to
the desert, lightning is playing amongst the hills ;
flash here, flash there, a mighty glow and then a
quivering dance of light.

So back to Biskra the new — Biskra the town of
the vulgar and the lewd.

At the dawn comes the prayer of the Faithful,
el fefur : ''In the name of the all merciful God, we
seek refuge with the Lord of the day against the sinful-
ness of beings created by Him, against all evil and
against the night lest they overtake us suddenly.'^

Day is broken, and the prayer of the Prophet
greets the morning. It has been greeting the morning
in the circling of the world ever since the grey of the
new day rose out of the Pacific. It has journeyed
across India, across Arabia, will traverse the width
of Africa, and the last cry will mingle with the roar
of the Atlantic beyond Morocco.

What is all this stir ? Why are the Arabs all in
spotless white and new shoes, and why do they look
so fresh, and why is there such sparkle in their eyes ?

Ramadan is over.

No more gnawing hunger and maddening thirst

122 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

through the long day, from four in the morning to
near seven o'clock at night. Now can they feast
and make merry. The sheep has been killed and
the smell of cooking is in the air. How happy
everybody is. Smiles dance on the lips as friend
meets friend ; hands touch, and then each man raises
his own hand to his lips to kiss it — the hand honoured
by the touch of his friend. Honour is done to old
men by an arm held encircling their necks ; under
pressure they are kissed on the forehead, whilst they
return the salute by a kiss on the elbow of their
friend.

The morning comes fresh and radiant, and the
whole earth laughs with joy. All the Arabs are in
their whitest, newest clothes. The shrouded women
— well, their white wrappings show creases, and the
creases advertise that the white coverings are new this
morning. The little children, boys and girls, noisy
and frolicsome, like all children the world over, are
in grandest attire, blues and mauves, reds and yellows,
chiefly yellows — and yet in the glow of the new day
softer tones would have been out of place.

It is nice to see the children. The Prophet loved
.children. Often when he prayed he held a child in
his arms. Only when he made prostration on the
ground did he put the child away. But even then,
in the moment of heart's abasement, his little grand-
children, the little ones of his beloved daughter
Fatma, climbed upon his back in play, and he never
removed or rebuked them. All the great souls of
the earth have loved little children.

Out on the yellow desert beyond Old Biskra,
thousands of white-clad Arabs have gathered for the

THE END OF RAMADAN 123

Great Prayer. They are seated upon the ground,
facing the east, which blushes with glory — a tender,
solemn glory. Each Moslem has placed his slippers
aside, for Allah must be thanked with meekness.
And that also explains why the Arabs have put
aside their gorgeous raiment and come in white
only — long curves of white-cowled men, except a
few from the desert, and they have bands of camel-
hair encircling the head. But away in the back-
ground, towards where the palm-trees rear, is a
group of devout women, shrouded, and behind them
are their negress servants with faces ebon-black,
and their clothing as red as the cheeks of ripe pome-
granates.

Here comes the Imam, the wise elder, a thin old
man bent with years. The colour of his drawn
skin is that of alabaster. His eyes are grey, full of
the kindness which comes with old age, and his
beard has thinned to a straggling grey tuft. He is
the honoured old man of Biskra, rich but living
humbly, generous to the poor. Says Mohammed,
" Prayer carries us half-way to Allah ; fasting brings
us to the door of his palace ; alms gains us admission."
And because he is the loved old man of Biskra, he,
on this most precious morning, leads the Moslems
in prayer.

A little in front of the great throng he stands.
He stands alone on a piece of rich carpet, leaning on
a stick, and his face is toward Mecca. The throng
of worshippers arise, long rows of silent men, bare-
footed, their keen olive faces half-wrapped in white.
A great silence falls. But the sun shines bright from
the pale blue sky, and there is the freshness of maiden-

124 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

hood in the morning air. Beautiful, entrancing,
dignified, that is the scene.

On the stillness rises the voice of the Imam, with
the tilt of husky falsetto that comes into the voice
of age. It is almost shrill : —

" La Ilaha ilia 'llahu ! "

And the mighty throng of worshippers, standing
erect and with eyes gleaming across the desert,
repeat the cry ; with no raised voice, but subdued
— deep, rich, Gregorian, like the rumble of many
tongues in a Christian cathedral during prayer. It
is the profession of faith : " La Ilaha ilia 'llahu !
— Tliere is no God but one God."

The Imam, palsied with his fourscore years, leads
the host in the prayers. But his voice weakens.
And the voices of the congregation gather in sonority.
Each prayer sounds like the low thunder of waves
breaking in a distant cave :

" With my face towards Mecca, and with a sincere
heart, I offer two prayers to Allah." All arms hang
loose, all bodies are straight, all features solemn.

Still standing, every man raises his hands to his
face ; his thumbs touch each ear, and his palms are
outward. " Allah is great ! " It is simple, but it
is grand. Still standing, the right hand rests over
the left hand on the chest. Then comes the cry:
" Hohness to Thee, O Lord. Praise be to Thee.
Great is Thy Name." Still standing, but the body
inclined forward, the hands resting on the knees
and fingers extended, the head is bent and a lower
note sounds : " I extol the sanctity of Allah ! " Novv'
on his knees rests every Moslem. " The Lord is
Great ! " And all bodies sway forward, and all

THE END OF RAMADAN 125

brows touch the earth. Not a whisper, not the
rustle of a garment. It is God's earth, and there is
no brushing aside of small stones. A long pause.
Then the Imam's voice, shaking like one in grief,
and the chant welling and swelling up behind him :
" I extol the greatness of the Lord, the most High."
That is the first prayer.

No one removes the grains of sand clinging to the
forehead. For when the Moslem, whose evil deeds
may have outweighed his good deeds, suffers the
torments of Purgatory before the All-Charitable
forgives and takes him to Paradise, the fires will
not torment the forehead which has been prostrated.

With the forefinger of the right hand raised, the
voices sound : " I affirm there is no God but one
God, that Mohammed is his Prophet." Next comes
the recitation of passages from the Koran. That is
the second prayer.

Do you see the picture ? can you feel the noble
poetry of it all ? — the desert, ending only where the
heavens come down to earth, the paling blue of the
sky, the day ripening into warmth, and thousands
of white-robed Arabs, barefooted and with deep-
chested voices, strong but lowered, giving thanks to
God.

The prayer is over. There is a rush towards the
Imam. The grace of Allah is upon him. To kiss
him upon the shoulder, to kiss the edge of his raiment —
nay even to kiss those who have touched his raiment —
that is merit. Yes, but a giant of a negro, a red
fez accentuating the jet of his skin, drives back the
over-eager worshippers. The old man is slowly and
with difficulty conducted to a stone pulpit. With

126 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

pain he mounts the steps. He is to preach, and
everybody crowds round close and squats on the
ground. Mohammed said that private prayers could
be as long as individuals liked, but that sermons
should be short. The Prophet, even in his day,
understood that long sermons did not necessarily
assist the mind towards devotion.

So the sermon is short, and it is read. The voice
of the old man, now very weary, does not carry well.
On the outskirts of the congregation, the children are
playing and chasing each other. Soon the sermon
is over. Then one more prayer of supplication —
" the marrow of worship " — ^hands lightly bent
towards the body, and faces upraised and looking
right into the eye of the sun, and Allah is beseeched to j
be gracious through the coming year, to keep away
sickness, to cause good crops to grow.

It is over. But as the worshippers came from
their homes one way they must return by another
route.

A blaze of friendship ! What happiness ! "V\Tiat
placing of hands upon shoulders ! Friend looks
joyously into the eyes of friend and kisses him on
both cheeks.

The desert grows hot under the breath of its
mother, the sun. The blue has been burnt out of
the sky, which is like a roof of steel. And are those
little brush-marks in the sky clouds ? Surely not
clouds, but only the sky, in its great quietude, dream-
ing of clouds.

Revelry, feasting, the spirit of good comradeship.
That is the end of Ramadan. No abstinence now.

X

<

<

H
3

n

o s
o s

ot
z ^

to

o

a -;

60

si
O

THE END OF RAMADAN 127

but gorging. The white robes are put away, and
everyone dresses in his best. A lamb is killed and
comrades come to eat. The children are driven
round Biskra in caparisoned carts, and they shout
and yell, and are gloriously happy. The Moslem
women have their friends, and show their finery and
munch sweetmeats. In the afternoon they go to the
cemetery and put sacred seeds into little glasses.
And the birds come and peck, and fly away with the
seeds, which are counted as prayers, right to the
gates of Paradise.

CHAPTER XI

BISKRA THE SPOILT

Biskra is the magnet which draws many people to
Algeria. It can be reached without discomfort by-
railway, unless you are a grumbler, and then you
will declare the journey is uncomfortable. It is on
the edge of the desert, and when you look south
there is nothing but a shimmering sea of sand.

Years ago Biskra must have been redolent of
the Orient. It is picturesquely ensconced in an
oasis. It was the first town reached by cavavans
coming up from the desert, and it provided peace and
shade and entertainment. It was truly Arabic.

Then the French built a railway, so that it was
easily reached. Then doctors discovered the air was
so dry it was just the place for invalids. Then Mr.
Hichens wrote his novel, " The Garden of Allah " —
and that did the mischief. The hotel-keepers and
tradesmen of Biskra ought to erect a golden statue
to Mr. Hichens, or give him an annuity of twenty
thousand francs a year. He is the maker of Biskra
to-day, and has brought much gold to the town.
But I wish " The Garden of Allah " had never been
written.

For Biskra is spoilt — irrevocably spoilt. It has
become the shrine of the galloping tourist, here
to-day and gone the day after to-morrow. The East

128

BISKRA THE SPOILT 129

is overlaid with the West. Instead of a natural
town it is a fake Eastern town. The picture of the
Orient, as seen in Bisla-a, is as much hke the real
thing as the Paris seen by the scurrying Cockney
week-ender is like the real Paris.

Great European hotels have been reared, and in
some of them the waiters are imported from Switzer-
land. There is a casino and a race-course. There
are promenade gardens where a French military
band plays in the evening. The train delivers a
swarm of noisy, guzzling German tourists, and they
crowd the Cafe Glacier and drink enormous quantities
of lager beer. Telegraph boys spin past on bicycles.
The screech of the gramophone is heard. Half the
shops deal in photographs. The place seems to have
been pelted with an avalanche of picture-postcards.

Touts — alleged guides — make life unbearable. All
the young lads and young men of Biskra, instead of
earning a decent livelihood, seem to spend their
time touting amongst the visitors ; and they are the
most persistent and impudent of blackguards. Their
chief occupation is to conduct sightseers to doubtful
places of amusement after dinner. Tourists make
friends with these touts, and the touts make money
out of the tourists. Plenty of people go to Biskra
for their health's sake, and imagine they are going to
see the real East. But Biskra is rapidly becoming
a caravanserie of licentiousness.

Everybody goes to the Street of the Ouled Nails,
the professional courtesans. It is a naughty experi-
ence, and quite nice ladies saunter through the sordid
lanes, and sip coffee in the dancing-saloons where the
attraction is the indecent posturing of fat females-

130 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

and they excuse themselves for going because it is
the custom of the country, and they are witnessing
a phase of hfe prohibited elsewhere. As a matter
of fact, there are not half a dozen real Ouled Nails
in the street^ — most of the girls are tricked-out
strumpets from Algiers and Constantine. They are
brought to Biskra for the amusement of Europeans
and Americans.

The air of Biskra is the thing, bracing, but windy
and impregnated with much sand. The morning is
cool and refreshing ; mid-day is sultry ; there is a
distinct chill at sundown. It is a good climate for
rheumatism. The water is charged with magnesia,
and neurotics and dyspeptics do well. But folk who
suffer Trom insomnia or melancholia — notwithstanding
the balls and junketings, and the endeavours to make
it an imitation Cairo — ^liad better keep away. Indeed,
though Biski*a was first boomed because of its health
qualities, very little attention is paid to the needs of
invalids. The tourist, jaunting for pleasure, is the
first and main consideration.

Whatever real enjoyment the traveller gets out
of Biskra is by neglecting the entertainments which
are arranged for him, leaving people of his own
country alone, spending his time amongst the natives.

Morality, it is said, is largely a question of climate.
And morality is not a characteristic of Biskra ; but
jealousy is. If a wife looks out of a window, her
husband buys one of the pistols made in the town
and uses it — on her. The women of Biskra have the
reputation of caring no more for their lovers than
for their lawful husbands.

The Arab puts the handkerchief to every con-

BISKRA THE SPOILT 131

ceivable purpose except that for which we use it.
In his long and flowing white burnous, he is a fine-
looking fellow. But I doubt if he were put in a
lounge suit and a felt hat whether he would be quite
so noble-looking.

That he lies, is simply to say that he is an Eastern.
He is particularly suspicious when he has to deal
with a French official. He lies in self-defence and to
injure his enemies. Even where there is no object
in deceit he still lies, because lies are less compromising
than the truth. He lies to confuse the foreigner ;
he lies for the sheer love of lying. Many of his
conclusions have no other foundation than intuition.
Life on the ever-shifting desert seems to have inter-
fered with his coherence of action.

In one quarter of Biskra live the negroes. One
night I wandered into a courtyard lighted by nothing
but moonshine and the gleam of a fire where kous-
kous was being prepared by the women. The black
men — some twenty of them — were crouching by the
wall watching the cooking. When I entered, the
women, who had their haiks thrown over their
shoulders, hurriedly covered their faces. One of
the negresses produced a green flag and stuck it in
the centre of the yard. Then musicians made a
circle and began banging forth music, which con-
sisted chiefly of the clash of cymbals. The men
jumped up and began, jerkingly, to whirl round the
yard. Faster and faster they went. Tambourines
were shaken and guitars twanged. Suddenly every
man seized a stick, gyrated swiftly, and gave a
whack with his stick upon the stick of his neighbour
— rather like men fencing with the single-stick.

132 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

^Vhirl, whirl, they spun, and at the same time danced
round the fire. They kept this going until the signal
was given that the kous-kous was ready. The sticks
were cast on one side. With jabbering the men
clustered round the platters of food, and gulped
handfuls of it as though they had not eaten for days.
This was the " feast of the sacred wood " — a. weird
scene.

Visitors hustle to the tomb of Sidi Okba, the
IMoslem conqueror of North Africa. But who goes
to Tolga ?

Tolga is an oasis, a four hours' horse -ride from
Biskra, across a white and forbidding plain. A
French duke, bored with Biski'a, came here some
years ago, and was fascinated with the village. There
was a tiny hotel. There he settled. He was rich
and he made Tolga the fashion. The herd of tourists
went to Biskra, but people who wanted to do the
correct thing flocked to Tolga. This tiny collection
of white huts beneath the tall palms was blessed
with a shower of gold. At once the building of a
large hotel was begun. Then the duke went away.
All who had come in his wake went also. The next
season Tolga vSeemed to be forgotten.

So when I went there I found the gates of the
big hotel closed. Not a soul to be seen in the sun-
splashed streets. But across the way was the little
hotel. Deserted, too ? Not quite. I clattered in
the courtyard, and then out came a large, full-
whiskered, expansive Frenchman. A delightful man.
Bedrooms ; they would be prepared for my friend
and myself at once. He clapped his hands ; a native

BISKRA THE SPOILT 133

servant appeared. Buckets of water were to be
provided so that we could sponge down. We wanted
drink. He had no wine — but he would secure some
— but he had a bottle of absinthe. A good stiS glass of
absinthe which brought cheeriness to the heart and
made the tongue fluent. We sat in the cool, colour-
washed eating-room and sipped absinthe.

Visitors to Tolga ? Oh, few— few ! But the
landlord liked Tolga, and he lived there for choice.
If visitors did not come it did not matter ; if they
did come he was pleased, and his charges were
moderate.

He got a basket and went forth to seek food.
And he imearthed two bottles of wine. And the
dinner was good — soup, a little mutton, a chicken,
and fruit ; many dates of amber hue, Tolga dates,
sweet and as soft as butter in the mouth. There
are no dates in the world like Tolga dates.

The tall and bearded Frenchman cooked the
dinner for us, and his smiling little daughter served
it. Then we sat down and smoked, and talked about
date culture. Then we climbed to our bedrooms,
opening upon a balcony, and prepared for sleep with
only the moon as lantern.

Wonderful are these oases. A bubble of under-
ground streams in the desert, and there springs
forth luxuriant vegetation. The barrenest stretch
of desert blossoms fruitful if only it has water. It
is this which gives many Frenchmen the dream that
by irrigation the desert may be made fertile and
prosper as it did in the time of the Romans — and
traces of their irrigation works may be discovered
at the present day.

134 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

The oases owe their existence to the natural
springs. The date-palm, the tree of the oasis, needs
plenty of heat and water ; it must have, so the
Aiabs say, its foot in the water and its head in the
fire. These wells are made possible by depressions,
often below sea-level, where the water rises naturally
as soon as it is reached from the surface. There is
a special corporation of well-seekers called r'tassa ;
they scoop out the sand, and the hole is roughly shored
with timbers. As soon as the water is reached it
gushes forth. A river has been tapped, even a
river with fish in it. But the fish are blind, with
scales over the eyes. However, if kept in open,
air-lit water for a time, the scales drop off, and the
fish can see.

For many years now the French have been busy
sinking artesian wells, with the result that villages
have sprung into existence where formerly there
was nothing but desert. Not by their rule or taxation,
but by providing wells, and therefore making culti-
vation possible, the prestige of the French amongst
the tribes has been enhanced.

One tribe, the Merazique, instead of lifting the
water to the gardens, sink their gardens to water-level.
This makes irrigation needless ; but it renders the
danger by the ever-encroaching sand greater. The
elongated dei)ression of the Sahara south of Biskra
is known as the Oued-lUr (" the river that buries
itself "). All over this depression springs have been
tapped, with fine results. Natives and Europeans
alike are assisted by the Government in well-sinking,
and all who benefit by the wells pay in due proportion
after the date harvest for the year has been sold.

BISKRA THE SPOILT I35

Since the French started well-smking in 1856, the
depression of the Oued-Rir has prospered. The
population has doubled ; the number of trees has
trebled, and the value of the date-palms has multiplied
ten-fold.

I was at Tolga at the height of the date harvest.
At the head of the palms were great clusters of
golden fruit. Arabs and negroes were climbing the
palms and cutting the bunches of dates. These
were stocked in houses, and then carefully packed.
The cases were hoisted on camel back and taken off
to Biski'a.

In the spring the palms begin to flower. Now
there are male and female palms, and the natives
climb the male trees and gather pollen, and then
the female trees are climbed and the male pollen
carefully shaken on the bursting blossoms. This
ensures a fine crop. There are many kinds and
qualities of dates. The best, big and soft and golden,
is the deglat-noir. A good palm yields on an average
a hundi'ed and twenty pounds of dates a year, and
a hectare, about two and a half acres of palms, gives
about seven tons. Every palm-tree is taxed by the
Government.

El Kantara 1

You look back, northwards, from Biskra, and you
see the Atlas Mountains lurid in the dawn and
shadowy grey-blue in the dusk. The rains
which sweep the mountains seldom travel beyond
the ridge. Far off you see the thunderstorms at
play, but they keep to the i-ugged lands.

Those mountains are like a stubborn bar. But

136 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

when you get near you find a sudden cleft — a gateway
from the north to llie desert which Hercules is said
to have opened with his foot.

Such is El Kantara— the bridge. You travel
amidst a jumble of burnt-bone hills. The hills close
in and their sides rear high and jagged. You are
passing through a crooked funnel of rocks. Narrower
and narrower gets the gorge ; higher and higher rear
the rocks. Then swiftly, in the snap of fingers, the
yelling train passes the rocks and nothing, nothing
lies before you but the bleached plain leading to the
Sahara. And yet not all bleached, for there are
spots which shimmer, and above the shimmer are
black scrolls — oases, apparently hung above the

earth.

This gateway to the desert is a wonderful thing.
Those indefatigable Romans came here and they
flung a bridge across the trickling stream, and scoured
a road along the face of the rocks. Part of the bridge
remains to this day, easily seen, and with the Roman
inscriptions well marked. The French, however,
have built another bridge, broader and higher, and
the road, in gradient and upkeep, is all a good road
should be.

In the fresh of the morning I sat on the bridge,
dangling my legs, smoking a pipe, and being amused
at several Arab boys bathing and splashing each
other. Down the road crawled a camel caravan, a
hundred camels and more, a whole tribe on the
move, Arabs and their women, slaves, horses, dogs
—a slow-moving, motley, picturesque throng, joyous
at the sight of the desert.

A long, echoing whistle, and from the tunnel

BISKRA THE SPOILT 137

up the hill-side rushed and rumbled a train, and
from the carriage windows peered Europeans and
Orientals.

Here, at the gate of the desert, were the ancient
and the modern ways of travel.

Roman legions marched along this road. Here
came a touring motor-car covered in dust.

Pleasant brook-cut groves make El Kantara an
exquisite spot — a bit of loveliness at the bottom of a
chasm. A quiet secluded inn was sufficient excuse for
a dawdling stay. In front is a balcony heavy with
mulberry trees. There is a well from which icy water
can be drawn. There is a Roman pedestal which the
landlord dug up in his garden. It is all very peaceful
and drowsy. Two white -robed Arabs, drinking syrup
of strawberries are evidently discussing business
with a withered Frenchman, who is sipping absinthe
and interminably smoking cigarettes. The hotel is
whitewashed, and has green shutters, and my friend
and I lunch in the cool of a shaded room. It is a
happy, slumbrous inn, and some day I shall go there
again.

But the Biskra tout has come to El Kantara.
There he is — three of the breed — standing beyond the
gates of the inn, and whilst we have our coffee he
babbles, " Geed (guide) ; ver nice ; ver good ; me
geed ; yes ; ver nice, ver good, ver expensive, yes."
That was the range of English. He would not be
shoo'd away ; he would not be cursed away ; the
threat of a bucket of water only made him grin.
When we v/ent out he followed us — at a distance.
Yet the brightness of these Arab boys, their imitative-
ness, their histrionic powers, made us smile.

138 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

We saunter through the gate of the desert to
where are three Ai'ab villages, crooked and mud-
built. Here the stream which trips its way down
the gorge is captured, and makes fruitful an oasis
where grow ninety thousand date-palms. The
villages give off the odour of dry dung. Leprous-
looking, sore-eyed and ragged villagers keep in our
trail. Maybe they thought we were intent on pur-
loining the beauties of their households. If they had
beauties they were hidden behind the mud walls.

But El Kantara is a lovely spot, too often missed
by the tourist in his or her hurry to reach over-
rated Biskra.

CHAPTER XII

RUINS, ROMAN AND OTHERWISE

A CRISP autumn morning, a Roman road in North
Africa, and a French automobile.

Burr-and-whizz — we left Batna and were out
upon the plains, and frightening to distraction Arabs
and their donkeys who were bringing vegetables in
to market.

WTioo-o-o-o ! — how we went along the road,
straight, curving, heaving, dipping, with no thought
of a constable to demand our names and addresses
and to provide intimation we would hear more about
travelling at such a speed. The siren shrieked like a
pained daughter of the Valkyrie, and far ahead mules
and camels and natives desperately tumbled off the
road to make way for us. The startled-eyed Arabs
stared at us. We gave them a wave of the hand ;
we were away, leaving a cloud of dust.

The harvest had been garnered and the land on
each side was close -cropped with stubble. Talk
about land on the prairies of western Canada being
wooed into wondrous fertility in this Christian
twentieth century ! Why, these plains grew wheat
before there were any Christian centuries. These
were the plains which supplied Rome with corn. This
was the Roman Mauretania, Rome's great colony,
where grew the wheat to provide Romans with bread.

' 139

140 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

The Roman politicians of two thousand years
ago no doubt talked of Imperialism and the wonderful
opening for young men in the colony of Mauretania.
And the Romans built beautiful cities — why, I was
journeying at forty miles an hour to visit the Winnipeg
of Mauretania. But Rome has gone. Timgad, the
Roman Winnipeg, is a heap of ruins.

I wonder whether, in the turn of the wheel, the
British Empire will have its decline and fall, and the
day come when tourists, far down the range of
generations to be born, will idle amongst the ruins
of the real Winnipeg, and talk about the kind of
people who raised a great city on the plains of Canada ?

Wc slowed down as we entered a tree-girt little
town. Arabs slithered along the street. Frenchmen
were sipping absinthe at a tiny cafe. Down the way
came a gang of prisoners, sad ruffians in corduroys,
taken out, in the charge of men with guns, to do
road repairing. There was a big building which
looked like a convent ; it was the prison.

This is Lambessa. You never heard of Lambessa ?
Well, neither had I till yesternight, when I " read
it up." Lambessa, know you, was the headquarters
of the famous Third Augustan Legion. Can you
hear the shouts of the Roman generals and the
tramp of the feet of Roman soldiers ? Swaggering
soldiers who were charged with the defence of North
Africa ! What a bad time they would have given
anyone who mentioned a dream that Roman power
would wane and disappear, and that the wretched
Gallic race would ultimately rule the land. But
they have gone.

There, however, lying outside the modern town

RUINS, ROMAN AND OTHERWISE 141

of Lambessa are the ruins of this ancient Lambsesis.
Sturdy ruins. The Prcetorium, high, strong, columned,
dark with age, stands stiffly, as though challenging
the centuries to do their worst. Grand arches, an
arch to Septimus Severus and an arch to Commodus,
and a temple to .^^sculapius, and an amphitheatre to
hold ten thousand people at holiday entertainments.
They had no newspapers in those days, but chisels
and stones tell of the deeds of their great men " in
the brave days of old." Well, well ; they have gone,
and goats are rummaging for food amongst the rank
vegetation in the amphitheatre, and Frenchmen are
growing grapes where the Roman warriors drilled.

The Roman road from Lambessa to Timgad runs
straight up and down the heaving country, with no
deviations to seek a gentler incline. It is overgrown
with grass, but it is well marked. The modem
Fi-ench road serpentines.

Away we went, ticking off the miles. A rise.
Before us lay a beautiful country, saucer-shaped.
On the distant slope we saw what looked like a
tumble of stones — and were those two chimneys ?
No, they were delicate columns, and the tumble of
stones was Timgad (ancient Thamugadi).

Whizz, whizz went the automobile. The curator
received us with a smile, and we passed into the
region of long ago.

The morning was now warm and genial. The
city of Timgad stood silent. It was like a monument
to itself. I felt I was walking in a cemetery. By
the walls of the little museum were busts of Romans,
statues of Roman goddesses, and I did not like their
cold, stony stare. I imagined they resented the

142 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

intrusion of the modern. But I was sorry for the
goddesses who had lost their noses and the gods
whose legs had been amputated at the knees.

This is the " show " city of Roman remains in
northern Africa. The main street, heavily flagged
with stones, shows the deep ruts of the carts. There
is a crack, and a peep can be got into the dry drain.

What fine buildings and magnificent colonnades !
There is the semicircular Curia, with marble seats
for the senators, and on the pedestals are the names,
as though graven last year, of men who were important
in their day. I stood before one pillar and I wanted
to shake hands with the man in whose memory it was
erected. Through the ages I could hear his laugh,
and through the haze of time I could see his happy
face. He had a philosophy, and it was carved in
stone : " To hunt, to play, to laugh — that is life ! "

Trajan's arch : what a noble and enduring monu-
ment it is. And the baths — all there save the roof —
cold baths and hot vapour baths, swimming tanks,
reposing and dressing-rooms. Why, the bricks are
so new one might think it was the beginning of a
new erection instead of the ruins of an old place.
Here, all that remains of the library. Was it given
by some Roman Andrew Carnegie ? And the theatre,
the stage, the high tiers of seats. A year or two
ago French players came and acted a Roman drama
here, and the audience was French ladies and gentle-
men in dainty frou-frou dresses and fashionable
bonnets, and patent leather, high-heeled boots and
frock coats — and possibly silk hats. Wliat a contrast
to the audiences for which this theatre was built !

But no Romans now. Timgad basks silently in

RUINS, ROMAN AND OTHERWISE 143

the sun. Oh, the glory of Timgad ! Pompeii is a
poor show compared with Timgad.

There is the market-place, but the stone stalls
are empty, and a big lizard scurries before me.
There are temples and fluted columns and carved
cornices, and many marble pillars lying on their
side. In the museum are statues and mosaics, and
frescoes and lamps and sarcophagi.

Timgad stands where six Roman roads inter-
sected. But of the Romans, who proudly built their
beautiful city, and marketed, and read books in the
library, and bathed, and crowded the theatre — not
one. Room for a moralising but depressing homily
here.

A French boy ran up. He was from the little
French restaurant beyond the ruins. Would we
like dejeuner before returning to Batna ? They had
excellent wine.

What a story Mauretania has to tell of race rolling
over race in its possession ! The Berbers, or bar-
barians, the oldest people to be traced, are now to be
found in the hilly regions to which their ancestors
retired before repeated mvasions. But thirty-four
hundred years ago they were a powerful people, and
even made onslaught upon Egypt.

The Phoenicians came in their galleys along the
north African coast fourteen hundred years before
Christ was born. Carthage was the pearl of their
cities. The Carthaginians prospered mightily in
trade, waxed valiant in war, and after mastering
Spain and Sicily, shook their fists in the face of
Rome.

144 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

Hannibal sent the terror of his name through the
ciA^Used world. Carthage waned in power. Spain
went ; Sicily went ; Rome waged war and brought
Carthage to ignominy. A flame blazed in the heart
of the Carthaginians ; they would repel the Romans.
The Romans decreed the fair city of Carthage should
be destroyed ; the heart was to be torn out of the
people. The Carthaginians resisted desperately.
Everything — even precious things from the temples —
were devoted to the making of arms. The women
cut off their hair to be used as bowstrings. But of
no avail. Crash went the walls ; in poured the
Romans ; invaders and defenders fought in streets
slippery with blood. The noblest Carthaginians,
driven back to the topmost point of their city, set
fire to their beloved Acropolis and there died. That
was the end of the city of Dido. The Romans wept
at the bravery of the enemy.

Rome stepped into the Carthaginian shoes. The
land was fertile and prosperous. Roads were made ;
cities were built. For there are Roman remains in
Mauretania, from the Gulf of Tunis to the Straits
of Gibraltar, whi(;h show that when the Romans,
settled they had " come to stay." They never
penetrated the desert ; they never got more than a
couple of hundred miles from the seaboard.

But eastward, right to the limits of Tunisia, are
ruins, grand, forlorn, slowly crumbling. If there
was " jerry building " in the days of the Romans,
the remains have mingled with the sands. There
was good work, and there it stands. Races have
surged across this land — Phoenician, Carthaginian,
Roman, Vandal, Byzantine, Arab — but the most

RUINS, ROMAN AND OTHERWISE 145

enduring remains are the Roman. They were
thorough.

Utica, the capital of Roman Africa, is now nothing
but a dirty Ai'ab village called Bou Chater. Carthage
was rebuilt, the city of Cgesar rose on the ashes of the
city of Dido, but it took two hundred years before
the whole of the coast lands were Roman. From
Tunis to Tangier were more than a hundred ports.
To this day the natives call all Europeans Bouinis
(Romans). In the wake of the Romans came
Christianity. It spread like a fiery cross ; the
natives stretched our their arms to it ; it was the
religion of the poor and the oppressed ; they were
poor, and crushed by the Romans. Wlien in corners
of Mauretania, note the tattooed cross on the cheeks
of the natives ; they do not know why they put
that cross except that it has always been the custom
of their people, but it is a relic of the days, seventeen
centuries ago, Avhen their ancestors proclaimed their
Christian faith.

The sap went from the sinews of Roman rule.
Bad government was succeeded by anarchy. Down
came the Vandals like wolves. They swept from
Spain into Africa under Genseric, scourged the
country and wiped out all civilisation. For fifty
years the Vandals worked havoc in the land. The
Byzantine Empire had grown in eastern Europe.
Fleets and armies came, and the Vandals were
expelled by the Greeks. The Greeks were both
oppressive and weak. They never held the Berbers
in thraldom.

Then the Arab invasion, coming a few years after
the death of Mohammed. The Arabs conquered

146 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

easily. Christianity died, and the rehgion of Islam
spread.

A .second invasion, about the time of the Norman
conquest in England, and Arabs — by the people loosely
called Moors — won the land to the Atlantic, crossed to
Spain, and conquered the lower part of the peninsula.
Berber risings, rival claimants to the kingship, internal
feuds for nigh four hundred years. The Christians
flung the Moors from Spain. Spanish and Portuguese
came and seized the best of the ports. Those were
the times of Charles V., grand days in the story of
Spain, and it looked as though North Africa would
be a Spanish colony. But Spain's thoughts were
then aglow with the discoveries of Columbus ; a new
way to the riches of India had been found. Africa
was not sufficiently cared for.

So the two Corsair brothers, Aroudj and Khair-
ed-Din, both known as Barbarossa, renegade Greeks,
came along, drove the Spaniards from Algiers, and
placed the land of Mauretania — Tunisia, Algeria,
Morocco — under the Turkish sultans. Flourishing
years of piracy and of slavery, until that fine old
English sailor. Admiral Blake, in 1654, entered Tunis
harbour, notwithstanding the fii'e of the batteries ;
and, under cover of the smoke, his men approaching
in small boats, destroyed the entire piratical fleet
of the Bey of Tunis. But there were other pu*ates
elsewhere, and for years the English were sending
ships, manned by eager sailors, to have a fight with
the pirates. France and Holland joined, and many
a bombardment there was to frighten the Turks and
Arabs into yielding up their Christian slaves. A
favourite threat of the Algiers Deys, when attacked,

RUINS, ROMAN AND OTHERWISE 147

was to promise to fire Europeans from the mouth of a
cannon if the foreign ships opened fire on the town.
Sometimes the threat was effectual ; when it was not,
the Dey did as he said he would. On one occasion
forty-nine French slaves were murdered in this
manner.

French interests began to grow. The French
(Government backed up Frenchmen who had com-
mercial disputes with the Deys of Algiers. France
waited her chance. It came when the Dey slapped
the face of the French Consul. Algiers passed into
the possession of France. The troublesome tribes
in the south gave France another excuse for estab-
lishing a " Protectorate " over Tunisia which, how-
ever, is as much French territory as is Algiers. And
France is now stretching her fingers into Morocco.

Of a variegated pattern is the history of North
Africa. It makes one wonder how long the French
occupation will last.

The October afternoon was palpitating. The
heat was sucking all the strength that was in me»
and there were moments when I would have given
much for the shadow of a tree.

I was fascinated. I stood on the cactus-strewn,
brown highland and looked about on all that remained
of Carthage, the city of the Phoenicians, the heritage
of Rome, the place where lovely Dido wept, where
Salambo loved, the city which was ravished by the
Vandals, reduced to ruins by the Arabs — and has
lain forgotten through the centuries.

Fifteen years had glided from my life since last
I stood on the dust of Carthage, and the old emotions

148 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

swept over me again. No schoolboy who has read
about the Punic Wars, who knows the story of
Hannibal, can think of the good old fighting days
of over two thousand years ago without a pant
coming into his blood.

Out on the blue waters of the Mediterranean a
red-funnelled boat is gliding. She is the mail from
Marseilles, and is bringing letters and newspapers
from home. On the slip of the hill, at my feet
almost, an electric tramcar goes trundling by.
Toot-toot ! and I catch a glimpse of the dust cloud
raised by a motor hurrying from Tunis to Marsa.
A wall-eyed Ai'ab cringes up and wants to sell me
old coins. There is an inn close by and two French-
men are guzzling bottled beer.

Very modern, isn't it ?

From the delved sands heave fragments of walls,
a few stumps of marble pillars, rubble-strewn old
cisterns. Across the land where the scant corn has
been garnered I kick up bits of pottery, a carved
bit of marble as large as my hand. And that is all
that remains of Carthage. It is all broken and
buried — a dead thing among the cities of the world.

But in my vision, this hot, sweltering, eye-aching
afternoon, I see the ships of the Phoenicians beating
across the waters of the bay twenty-seven hundred
years ago. There are modern villas now by the
harbour where the Phcenician ships rode.

I would be happy with my cigar strolling among
the scraps of splendour. But I am worried by a
guide. He will show me everything and tell me
everything for five francs. I assure him I do not
want him to tell me anything, and I can find my

RUINS, ROMAN AND OTHERWISE 149

way by myself. He says I will lose my way, and
lowers his price to four francs. I tell him I have
not four francs to spare. He says he will come for
three francs. I tell him to go away. In a gust of
goodwill he says he will be my guide all the afternoon
for two francs. I tell him to get out. He says he
would give me a Roman coin, found in the ruins,
if I would employ him for one franc fifty centimes.
I tell him to clear out. Then he goes down the
road kicking any stray bit of ruin that is lying in
the way.

But it is hot, and I seek shadow under the
Cathedral of St. Louis, erected by the good Cardinal
Lavigerie. The Cardinal did a noble work for
Christianity in Algeria ; but he might have built
his cathedral somewhere else. It may strike some
as a grand idea to build a Christian cathedral on the
mount where stood the pagan Temple of Concord.
But at the risk of sacrilegious thought, I declare it is
not a pretty building, and its huge rawness does
much to spoil the aroma of antiquity which one can
breathe whilst watching the relic-strewn dunes of
Carthage.

The guide-book gives you a map to help you to
find where famous buildings stood. But happily you
can weave your picture by yourself.

That is what I like best : to sit and smoke, and
in the blue of my cigar fumes make the mind play
cinematograph, and give m.e a moving picture of
the pageants that are now but dreams. There
stood the Megara, a building sixty feet high : stables
for three hundred elephants, stalls for four thousand
horses, lodgings for twenty thousand foot soldiers

150 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

and four thousand horsemen. R.amp — and they all
come out together, and I see them down the road
near the sea. Over there was a wine cellar, time of
Augustus ; the bricks have the dates of their making,
and most are about twenty-five years before Christ.
Down the slope was the Forum, the Temple of Apollo,
the lovely baths of Theodora. You see the ladies
coming from the bath : you see the libations to
Apollo : you hear the hoarse shouts from the amphi-
theatre : it is a holiday and Christian martyrs are
being tortured.

Earlier to-day I saw a stretch of the aqueduct,
over a hundred miles long, sometimes in under-
ground channels, sometimes over thousands of lofty
arches — the Vandals left a few hundred — capable of
delivering six million gallons of water. Not much
of the amphitheatre left, but -^Titers say it was a
magnificent building.

A very drowsy place to-day. On March the
seventh, year 202, two Christian women fought with
wild beasts in the amphitheatre and were martyred.
On March the seventh, year 1895, High Mass was
celebrated in the amphitheatre by the Primate of
Africa.

I have been in the Musee Alaoui — once the harem
of Mohammed Bey — and there I saw much that has
been recovered of Carthage in its prime. Time falls
away. I ignore the defacement of the marbles, the
marble gods reduced to torsos, the goddesses with
chipped features and limbless. I see the fine mailed
figures of Roman warriors, and I cannot think two
thousand years have gone since a chisel carved them.
The mosaics— hunting scenes, scenes of the seasons?

RUINS, ROMAN AND OTHERWISE 151

laughing nymphs from the sea, features of conquerors-
are as bright as though done yesterday. A bronze
youth laughs, A blind old man, wrinkle -browed,
raises his sightless eyes in supplication. There is
the bust of a woman, matronly, her hair wavy and
sweeping from a broad forehead — I am positive I
have recently met her somewhere in a London
drawing-room. There is a mosaic of Virgil dictating
the Mneid. There are masques of comedy and tragedy.
There are marble urns with gay figures dancing
round them. There are shy, nude women with
dainty limbs. I look into the quiet marble counten-
ances and wonder if the little models were happy
women — ^two thousand years ago ?

My reverie is broken. An Arab boy comes up
and inquires if I will buy two live ducks. VVliat
do I want with two live ducks ? I glance at my
watch, run down the hill, and catch the electric car
back to Tunis.

CHAPTER XIII

MONSIEUR TALKS ABOUT HIMSELF

Some things are hard to beheve — even when you see
them. Travel in Africa, that means a trail of ebony-
skinned porters, with great bundles on their heads,
stalking single-file through jungle ; or it means camel
caravans rhythmically surging across the sands. A
lumbering diligence seems too European ; it does
not fit the picture. As for motor-cars, swishing along
the highways, driven by the conventional chauffeur,
and carrying the conventional females swathed in
dust-coats and goggles and thick veils, why they
are an outrage on our long-held beliefs on the way
to see Africa.

I never watched a train rolling and rattling and
shrieking its way across the desert without the
surprise of the philosopher who found the fly in the
amber and wondered " how the devil it got there."
There are good railways in Mauretania, especially the
line belonging to the Paris-Lyons and Mediterranean
Company. There are so-so lines in Tunisia. There
are wretchedly bad ways, dirty carriages and broken-
down engines on the East Aif^erian line, now con-
trolled by the State.

It was always with the feeling that some accident

had happened, or that I was in a dream., when at

a wayside Algerian station I saw the familiar vehicles

152

MONSIEUR TALKS ABOUT HIMSELF 153

of the International Sleeping-Car Company, with
the chocolate -clad attendant by the door. And the
restaurant -car — just the same as in Europe, with the
thick blue cups for the soup, and the thick blue
plates for the same old omelette, the same old chicken,
the same old sweets, and the same old and familiar
advertisements of Himgarian mineral waters, and
the luxurious ships by which you ought to go to
America, and the hotels at which you ought to stay
when in Paris.

Now I had been riding horseback from four in
the morning till two o'clock in the afternoon, over
rocks and through sand and past basking Arab
villages. Tired and clammy and grimy, I caught the
express. It was good to have a chair after the ache
of the saddle, and it was very good to pull down
the blind and shut out the glare. It was excellent
to have a long tumbler and a bottle of white wine
and mineral water and a bucket of ice placed before
me. I absorbed the di'ink like the parched, sand-
laden animal I was.

Monsieur was sitting on the other side of the
httle brown table. He was carefully drawing at the
last half-inch of a cigar in a paper and quill holder.
He was a prosperous, fat Frenchman, with cropped
hair and scissored beard, and a blase look in his
pursy eye. But there was a yellow tinge to his skin
which told he had lived in the sun.

I sighed my thanks for a good drink. Particularly
was I thankful that on the restaurant-car of the
Wagons-Lit Company a serviceable bottle of Algerian
white wine could be got for sixty centimes, and a
good wine for cue franc twenty centnnes the bottle.

154 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

" But not for long," answered Monsieur, flicking
the end of his cigar into the ash-tray. " Algerian
wine has come into its own. You like it ; yes, it
is a wine with bouquet. The grape crop has failed
in France ; there is no French wine this year [1910].
So Algerian wine, which was the Cinderella of vintages,
is now wanted bv France. It will be sold in London
as Sauterne and Graves, and you v/ill pay six, eight
francs a bottle for it. Algerian vine -growers have
waited for years. People thought Algerian wine
must be poor ; they scoffed at it. You know that
at all our hotels the wine of the table has been free.
But not now ; a charge has to be made, or the wine
is weakened by water. Because the French crop has
failed, the price of Algerian wine has doubled, trebled.
Fortunes are being made. Our wine is liquid gold*
May I recommend a really good Algerian wine to
you ? "

The congratulations of a foreigner were offered
on the happy turn of the wheel of Algerian fortune.
Then I made polite remarks on the success of France
in North Africa.

" Yes," Monsieur added, and his views were
those of a growing proportion of Algerian-born
Frenchmen ; " but we are too much hampered by
administration from Paris. Geographically, Algeria
is a separate country from France ; politically, it is
the same country. We send our representatives to
the Chamber of Deputies. Algiers is as much a
French port as is Marseilles. You know France has
its laws governing coast trade, and Algeria is part
of the coast of France. That is bad for us. Why ?
Because it checks competition by foreign ships.

MONSIEUR TALKS ABOUT HIMSELF i55

How did you come here ? All, from Marseilles !
Did you ever travel in more expensive and less com-
fortable boats iA your life ? We Algerians protest
and we grumble ; but there is no redress. There is
practically a monopoly. Manufactured articles from
France come here free. Goods from other countries
are taxed, but the money is for France, of which
Algeria is counted a part, and not for Algeria. We
v/ould like to have our own custom duties for the
benefit of Algeria."

" That rather suggests independence from France,"
I ventured.

" Precisely. We Algerians recognise what we owe
to France. But living in another country, born in
another country, many of us with no family relation-
ship with France, we are growing into a separate
nation. Do not look astonished ; it is true. But
do not think we are disloyal to France — never !
never ! Algerian property we want to be for the
benefit of Algiers. The time is coming — not at once,
maybe not for a long time — when Algeria will want
to be like a British colony, managing its own affairs
in its own interest, and at the same time proud to
belong to the French Empire."

" But you need colonists," I said. " Wliilst I
have been struck with the fine way Algeria is
administered, I have not noticed that the real work
of colonising is done by Frenchmen. Your white
labouring population, outside the towns, are either
Italians or Maltese or Spaniards."

" That is true," replied Monsieur. " Remember
that only within the last ten years Algeria is recognised
as something besides a French possession. It is a

156 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

great food-producing area. I have mentioned to
you the advance we have made in wine production.
There Hes a great trade. In vegetables and in fruits
our cHmate is such that we can get into the Paris
market six weeks ahead of the South of France, and
in distance Paris is only a day and a half journey
from Algiers. To the Romans the rich land of the
northern plains were the grounds for growing grain.
This is again going to be a great wheat-growing area.
Young Frenchmen, more than perhaps you think,
are coming here and are wheat-raising and doing
well. I have read about the wheat areas in Canada
— wonderful, wonderful ! But here we have no
harsh winter ; the soil is good, and we have plenty
of rain. Native labour is cheap. It is not so good
as white labour, but its cheapness more than com-
pensates. So the French farmer coming here with a
little capital has good chances, splendid chances.
Farmers are beginning to come ; you can see what
they are doing in the Oran province. But I admit
freights are too high, railway and steamship. That
is one of the reasons why we Algerians want to run
the country as a self-governing colony. Then we
can bring pressure to bear on the French Government ;
we can tlireaten to tax French-made goods and give
other countries an equal chance — which would injure
the carrying trade from France — unless the French
Government brings pressure to lower the rates."
" Do the French people realise this ? "
" They do not," said Monsieur. " Frenchmen are
the most ignorant people on earth about other
countries. The ordinary Parisian thinks Algeria is
a terrible place with nothing but sand, and fit only

MONSIEUR TALKS ABOUT HIMSELF 157

I for Zouaves. Wlien they come here on a visit — and
i more English and Americans come than French —
; they are surprised. To the south there is a wonderful
' trade in alfa grass for paper manufacture. There are
i the oases where dates are grown. All things con-
I sidered, we have done well in the construction of

railways."

" You have done splendidly," I interjected.

" But think of the pockets of rich country we

shall tap when there are more railways to the south,"
I he went on. " Think of the millions of blacks away
! there to the south. There is trade there, below
[ Ghardaia, and even below El-Golea, a tremendous

trade for cotton goods. And we want more railways."
" But the country is still restless, amongst the
\ Touaregs, the black veiled men, for instance," I
i mentioned.

" That is getting a thing of the past," was the

reply. " The nomad tribes used to raid our outposts,
i but nearly ten years ago the companies of the
i Saharan oases were formed to replace regular
I troops. They are natives, officered by Frenchmen —

infantry, cavalry and meharistes (camel corps) with

light field-pieces. So the south country is now well-
i policed, and the outposts are linked up by telegraph.
j Our authorities make much of the chiefs and decorate
i them. Besides, the natives are realising the advant-
! ages of having an easy market for their produce.

That is better than soldiers. We are going farther
i and farther south, and though, now and again, there
I is trouble with the nomad tribes, the penetration is
i peaceful on the whole."

Monsieur spoke with enthusiasm. He Avas

158 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN |i

Algerian born. He was a business man with many-
irons in the fii'e. He v/as keeping them all hot. We
exchanged cards, and he invited me to visit his
vineyards.

The train rolled and rumbled over the baked
land. We had the blinds do^vn, but points of light
struck through the apertures like gleaming sabres.
We touched the little bell and the tinkle awoke the
tired-out attendant. We ordered a bottle of white
wine and mineral water and lots of ice. We drank.
Thirst is horrible, but the relief of thirst is one of
the three exquisite sensations in the world. There
was no corridor connection between the restaurant-
car and the rest of the train. Wlien the car was
mounted it was necessary to remain until the train
reached another stopping-place. There is only one
car, and all the passengers— first, second and third
class— use it. First-class passengers stay as long as
they like ; second class are not supposed to, but
they do. Indeed " the man who knows," and who
is taking a journey of only two or three hours, generally
buys a second-class ticket, and then spends his time
in the restaurant-car. Third-class passengers, how-
ever, are generally given the intimation to clear out
at the station after then- meal or beverage is finished.

Monsieur talked sheep. Pasturage is not of the
best, but a shepherd is not expensive and the sheep
are moved slowly from one feeding ground to another
— fine sheep, yielding good wool and fine mutton.
There is a great prospect in the sheep industry.

Various types of men joined us. Several were
commercial travellers. Others were men of the
country.

MONSIEUR TALKS ABOUT HIMSELF i59

" Every department of France," said Monsieur,
" has provided colonists for Algiers. At first Corsica
and the south led thx3 way — you will have noticed
our French is not Parisian — and then Alsace-Lorraine.
Do not forget that much more than half the French
population was born in Algeria. The country is
still rather run on bureaucratic lines, and I am afraid
our politics are sordid. We have not the initiative
of the British in colonisation. Wlien we have a
scheme we do not set about doing it. We spend a
lot of time in endeavouring to squeeze some financial
assistance out of the Government. There is too
much — oh, I know it — too much palm-oiling and
bribery and corruption to make us happy. But you
have that in most new countries, in the South
American Republics, in the United States itself. But
I have faith. We are not decadent, we Algerians ;
we are rearing a new race on the French stock, and
we have a grand hope for the future. Recent legis-
lation has had the effect of increasing the French
population by nationalisation. The Maltese who
come here soon assimilate with the French-born.
But Spaniards and Italians retain their individuality
— in many of the communes they have electoral
majorities— and their influence on our political
future is quite as serious as that of the Jews. The
Jews, even the descendants of those who have lived
in North Africa for centuries, have no association
with France, and do not even speak the French
tongue, but they are very powerful. They get
the mastery here in finance as in other countries.
They are Jews first and French citizens afterwards.
In a number of communes they are the richer and

i6o THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

more important ; they hold the balance, and by
throwing their vote on one side or the other they can
return what candidate they like to the Chamber of
Deputies. All candidates play to catch the Jewish
vote — oh, very good for the Jews. Well, possibly
you know something of the Jewish character. They
nip the Arabs, they nip the Spaniards, they nip the
Italians — they nip all of us. I do not want to be un-
fair ; the Jew sees further than we do — his glance
travels along more curves than ours does — and he gets
ahead of us. The richest people in Algeria to-day
are the Jews. But you can understand the bitter-
ness of the anti- Jewish feeling. It often blazes — but
it subsides."

" But how do the other races get on together ? "
I inquired.

" We all hate the Jews. The Arabs hate them
more than we do, because the Jews are cleverer than
we are," said Monsieur, taking a long draught.
" Some day, it may be, French, Spanish and Italian
Algerians will mix. But though we remain distinct,
none of us are like the home French, Spaniards or
Italians. We are in a different climate. I read a
magazine article about Australia — what an enormous
continent ! Algeria is one -third of a million square
miles, and yet we have a population larger than
Australia ; we are nearing six million inhabitants.
We French number three hundred thousand, one
Frenchman to every square mile of Algeria, though
that includes our soldiers — about forty thousand.
This is the thing to remember, over two hundred
thousand of the Europeans in Algiers are engaged in
agriculture. That is very good for Algeria. None

MONSIEUR TALKS ABOUT HIMSELF i6i

of your British colonies — certainly not Australia,
about which I read an article — can show such a
fine proportion of its white population engaged on
the land. You are interested in the success of our
country. Ah ! it is pleasant to meet you British.
You always want to know things. Now, most French
visitors only want to know which is the best cafe in
a town. I will tell you ; I study Algeria. I make
my money here. Do you know that last year
Algeria — little Algeria — produced two hundred
million gallons of wine ? Do you know we produced
over twelve million gallons of olive oil ? Do you
know that we have seven million acres under culti-
vation, producing wheat, barley and oats ? Do you
know we have over six million acres of forest, much
of it cork-producing ? That we produce silk cocoons
nearing a himdred thousand ounces a year ? That —
I don't include Tunis — we have well over two
thousand miles of railroad ? You look surprised !
Of course. French newspapers do not bother much
about Algeria. British papers only write about
success in their own colonies. American papers only
write about themselves. But Algeria counts. Algeria
when developed will be of marvellous use to the
millions of Europe.^ I am an Algerian, and I have
faith in Algeria. A voire sanie, monsieur ! "
'' A la voire ! " said L

CHAPTER XIV

VIGNETTES

It was Ali Mohammed's sister, Lips of Pomegranate,
who attracted.

Ali Mohammed was a young Oriental, who put
on airs amongst his fellows because he had been to
France. He was enthusiastic about Europe and its
ways, and openly paraded his views that the Arab
was out of date. That was because he was green
in years. He will change as he gets older.

He was frankly envious of my roving life. He
sighed, and said that some day he would travel.

If I would visit his house, visit his sister and
himself, an honour would be done his miserable
abode which could never be forgotten. He loved
Europeans. He had told his sister about me. She,
though strict amongst Moslems and always veiled
when in the bazaars, had never met Europeans,
except two frowsy women, who said they were sorry
for her. AU Mohammed said I was his friend, and
would I watch the death of the day on the desert
from his housetop ?

That is how I came to know Lips of Pome-
granate.

Only the aroma of remembrance remains of that
lurid, palpitating afternoon when Ali Mohammed,
tall and slim, with the tiniest moustache, with eyes

162

VIGNETTES 163

that were brown and liquid and almost feminine — a
young Arab gentleman in purple burnous and with
a sprig of jasmine over his ear — walked with me
through the white streets. He was honoured. I
got rather tired of his insistence that my visit to his
house filled him with honour.

A big black smudge in a white wall, and a
square oaken door. He knocked. A crumpled old
fellow, with cracked, leathern skin and rheumy
eyes and grizzled beard, opened the door. A dark
cool passage, and an Arabic courtyard bathed in
sunlight.

Though the smi was falling, the air was sultry
and heavy with languor. But there was the sweet
music of swiftly dripping water. A boy, as brown
as a nut and clad in nothing more than what at
home would have been known as a white cotton
night-shirt, came forward with a long-spouted silver
urn and poured scented water over our hands,
which made them cool and fragrant. We patted the
water on our lips to get refreshment. And the little
kerchiefs handed were of saffron silk.

Ali Mohammed cried aloud, and from somewhere
came a girl's answering treble, soft like a whisper
in the dark. Ali smiled and showed his teeth, so
very white and so very regular.

There were dark alcoves, cushioned with mats,
and hung with scrolls carrying golden axioms from
the Koran. Heavy curtains hung before arched
doors.

Would I go upon the roof ?

My eyes blinked when again I emerged into the
sunlight. The sky threw down the reflection of hot

r64 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

brass. The flat white roof and the low white parapet
were dazzUng.

In a corner were cushions, and on them sat a
bundle of white. An old hag, wizened, bow-legged
and in scant green trousers, shuffled in yellow heelless
slippers. Ali muttered something, and the hag
showed her old teeth, grunted and disappeared.

We went to the bundle of white, which remained
motionless. Ali laughed, and exclaimed he had
brought the Ttoumi.

The bundle half turned. The over-hood of white
was thrown back.

I saw two large eyes, light brown like those of a
young gazelle, looking at me over the top of a veil.
A long, thin hand, delicately brown, with henna on
the nails, and gold ornaments on the ^vrist, was
stretched forth. I took the proffered hand, and the
palm was warm and caressing.

Ali Mohammed was excited. Would I not sit

down ?

Here on a little table, no higher than a footstool,
were sweet Arab cakes, dishes of honey, fruits,
amber-hued dates, mint tea, and water chilled in
porous flagons.

He was so sorry Lips of Pomegranate spoke no
language but Arabic, and she was sorry ; but she
was honoured I had come to her brother's house.
Never before in her life had she met a Roumi. She
was shy. She did not know the ways of the Roumis.
Roumis and their ladies, unveiled, met and talked
and walked and were friends — so different from the
ways of the Moslem world. She did not understand.
He was no conventional Arab. I was a European

VIGNETTES 165

gentleman. He loved the life of Europe. But Lips
of Pomegranate was a woman. I would forgive.
They were both honoured.

I smiled at Lips of Pomegranate, and though
the veil hid all but her eyes I knew there was a smile
in reply. Mysterious those unblinking eyes, with
the black arched eyebrows made blacker with kohl,
and a little streak of kohl joining the arches. Deep
and unfathomable eyes, steady in their gaze,
that sent a pleasurable shiver through an impres-
sionable man.

I was thirsty, and I said so. Ali translated. Lips
of Pomegranate poured water into a goblet of copper
and silver, and holding it in both her little hands,
held it toward me. Though seated on the floor, I
made a low bow and drank.

She offered cakes, and Ali and I ate. But Lips of
Pomegranate was silent and ate not. So I protested.
Ali said something. Lips of Pomegranate hung her
head. Ali spoke again. Then she raised her delicate
hands, and with a little movement loosed her veil,
which fell upon her lap.

She blushed. The hot blood showed tlirough the
soft olive skin.

Yes, she was beautiful. I felt All's gaze upon
me, and I knew instinctively he was wondering
whether I, the Roumi, was thinking his sister was
beautiful.

It was beauty with something of the exotic
loveliness of the orchid about it. She was young and
fragile. The face was oval, the narrow nose was
Semitic ; the lips were small and full and pouting
and red and maddening. It was the face of a

166 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

woman which a man's imagination conjures when
it roams after reading Hafiz and Sadi and Omar
Kliayydm.

Hesitatingly, she raised her head until those soft
eyes looked, with what I fondly thought was a
lingering, searching look — looked straight at me as
though in her little Oriental brain was the fever
to fathom what was passing in the mind of the
stranger — this big, aw^kw^ard-limbed man from a
far land.

Was the coquettishness of the woman triumphing
over the shyness of the harem girl, and was she
endeavouring to cast the S23ell of her eastern fascination
over me ? Maybe she interpreted the hot colour
which came to my cheek. She dropped her eyes
suddenly.

Turning to Ali, I said that if Lips of Pomegranate
were the sister of an English friend, I would have no
hesitation in congratulating him. Lips of Pome-
granate, intuitively, instinctively, knowing I was
talking about her, questioned her brother. He told
her what I said, for a deep glow suffused countenance
and neck.

A lovely creature. I looked upon her and my
senses became as if soaked in opium. I was filled with
an ecstasy of emotion.

The sun began to dip. I realised that, and I
murmured I had come to see the view. I jumped to
my feet, Ali Mohammed rose and then offered
cigarettes.

Lips of Pomegranate rose. How tall she was —
as tall as I myself. I asked if she would care for a
Russian cigarette, and I produced my case. She bent,

VIGNETTES 167

as she took the thin cardboard tube between her
Hps whilst I held a match. She smiled her thanks.
It was a ravishing, provoking smile, tinged with
sensuousness, and the minx knew it.

She lost her shyness. She threw aside her white
cloak, which had umbrella'd her from the sun. Her
dress was black and green edged with gold, a black
zouave jacket, and the filmy gauze did nothing to
hide the cadenced pulsations of her breasts. No
corsets stiffened her waist. She was supple. Her
frock clasped close, so that, when she walked, the
sway of the slender hips was seen. As she moved
across the roof to the parapet, with lithe, almost
snake-like, undulations, her wanton walk told of the
lazy lasciviousness of her nature.

She knew. She was no woman if she did not
know her charms. Her glance was a caress. Those
eyes, so timid at first, were capable of the reckless
rapture of love. She was a sylph.

The sun sank in glory beyond the golden desert,
and pensiveness dreamed over the world. The air
was thick with the odour of the gardens. The
call of the nuiezzin sounded from the minaret. Spice-
haunted dusk came quickly.

I have often thought of Lips of Pomegranate.
Ali Mohammed has written and told me he has
married her to a kaid who lived in the far south-
lands.

Bordj -bou-Arreridj is a town which wise people
avoid.

It is a mongrel sort of place with an Arabic name,
French houses, and a polyglot population. It is as

i68 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

picturesque as a back-block township in the Aus-
trahan bush. It was never designed ; it just grew.
Then the French miUtary put a big stone wall all
round it. An officer told me it was for purposes of
defence. But I believe the real reason was to prevent
Bordj-bou-Arr6ridj getting any bigger. I have met
a man who, after a good, wine -soaked dinner, found
it a very difficult place to pronounce.

There was nothing to do — nothing for me to do
— in the swelter of the day but sit in the dirty saloon
of the inn, sip iced drinks, smoke cigarettes, and
listen to a garrulous, fat madame telling me about her
daughters who were doing so well at school. She
insisted on showing me a photograph of the pudding-
faced damsels — to cheer me up, perhaps, because
she saw I was bored.

She regretted there was no bath in the hotel.
She did not know whether there v/as a bath in Bordj-
bou-Ai-reridj, but the chemist down the street could
tell me. The chemist laughed. Truly, I was a
stranger. Then he apologised for the town ; nobody
in Bordj-bou-Arreridj ever bathed. It was a stage
in civilisation yet to be achieved.

I made up my mind to dislike the place.

Sheer ennui drove me near sundown for a stroll
beyond the walls towards the desert. I seemed to
walk through a looking-glass into a jumble of East and
West. Never was there such a medley of the Orient
and the Occident. I was in the past and in the
present. There was the life of a thousand years
ago mingled with the life of the twentieth century.

Listen !
. There sounded the voice of the muezzin, the call

VIGNETTES 169

from the minaret top for all good Mohammedans to
pray. But the wailful cry of the holy man was broken
by the clang-clang-clang of the little bell swinging over
the top of the Catholic church, reminding Christians
of evensong.

Roar-roar. Why, there was a railway line. A
great passenger train was crashing along, a heavy
bellowing engine, long coaches with curtained
windows, a restaurant-car, a sleeping-car — I might
have been in western Europe. And up from the
desert came a long-lined camel caravan, the camels
hoisting their heads in disdain at the infidel invention
— a railway train. The caravan — camels, Arabs,
veiled women, children, dogs, donkeys — came crawling
at a drowsy pace suitable to a land of plenty of
time. Before the caravan had trudged its own
length, the roaring train was a smudge of dust on the
horizon.

The camels gave a swerve. Panting by, there
grunted a motor-car, bringing four sand-smothered
tourists. Two Arabs in flowing robes go scampering
across the desert on their caparisoned, long-tailed
Arab stallions. A peasant comes, leading an ass,
and on the back of the animal is seated his wife
with hidden face. Three native girls, kohl-decked,
slither along, only their eyes visible, silver anklets
making a jangle as they walk. And there is a dapper
French officer in riding boots, but walking, accom-
panying two French ladies on a little saunter in the
cool. The ladies are fashionably dressed, and have
wide hats, and their patent shoes are neat. They
step daintily — ^a contrast to the waddling ^Vi-ab
women.

G*

170 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

Toot-toot ! and a young Frenchman cuts along
the road at a great pace on a motor bicycle. Two
Arab lads, laughing and moving zig-zag, come on
ordinary bicycles. From the stout gates of the town
is lumbering an antiquated stage coach. The horses
run as though tired ; they are decrepit and frowsy.
They are going south, and will not reach their destina-
tion till midnight. A throng of white -wrapped Arabs
lean from the windows.

On one side I notice a whirring American water-
wheel. Along by the town w^all a bunch of young
French Algerians are kicking a football. At a little
distance, devout Moslems, with slippers laid aside,
have their faces turned Mecca-wards, and are bowing
and kneeling and saying their prayers.

Back in the town, with the lamps now lighting.
In a little box of a shop sits a scribe. He has, under
dictation, been penning a letter in Arabic, and is
drying the ink by running poAvdery sand over it.
But up the street, in a French store, is heard the
click of a typewriter.

Arabs are sitting in front of caf^s, sucking hubble-
bubble water-pipes. I have to walk round them to
get to the little tobacconist's shop, where, for two
sous each, I can buy some picture -postcards of Bordj-
bou-AiT^ridj.

The whole scene is very typical of the clash of
change coming over the towns of northern Africa
to-day.

It is not only British officers who lead lonely
lives at the outposts of empire.

We were in the rabble city of Constantine, and

VIGNETTES 171

were idling an hour before the cafe of the square,
and watching the medley throng.

My friend raised his chin. I followed the
direction indicated. Three tables away sat an
officer, tall, thin, burnt with the sun. Sadness was
in his eyes. Instinctively he looked, gave solemn
salutation to my companion, and then continued to
sit looking listlessly before him. I am sure he was
taking no notice of the laughing, eve -sauntering
multitude.

Then I heard his story, and I tell it much as it
was told to me :

He was a soldier, earnest, sincere, making progress.
But he was not rich, and his fortune carried him to a
frontier post, far, far, to the south, beyond the holiday
land, across the billowy sands to where men had lost
their brownness and were black, and the marauding
Touaregs, veiled men of the Sahara, made life stirring.
He was in command of a small body of reckless,
adventurous French troops, who were never so happy
as when expeditions, with plenty of fighting, were the
work.

At the end of three years he came out from the
savage, thirsty region, and went home — home to his
beloved France, home to joyous, pleasure-loving
Paris. And there happened the old story. He fell
in love, was loved, and they were married.

The bride was blithe-hearted. Her life had been
easy, and the happiness of Paris had been hers. But
she was proud of her husband. His service, " away
down there," had the glamour of romance in it, and
her prospective residence " away down there "
was nothing more to her than a real page in an

172 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

enchanting story-book which she was about to
read.

Adieu ! France was waved to with fluttering
handkerchiefs, and was lost in mist and in tears.
Algeria laughed a welcome of sunshine. Algiers
was delightful. Its orientalism fascinated. The
military life was gay and she was a bride — she was
happy.

Then they went " away dovm there," first by
train, then by carriage, then by horse, moving in
slow stages, and camping each night on the desert.
It was all so wonderful, so strange, so like a dream.
But she was with him, and the future was a shimmer
of mystery.

" In lone and silent hours
When night makes a ^Yeird sound of its own stillness,"

she would think of the dancing lights of Paris, so
far away ; of her many friends, oh ! so far away ;
of her parents, so very, very far away ; and a little
dread would creep into her heart ; but she shut her
eyes tight as though that would keep out the thoughts
which surged.

So they came to the frontier post ; many brown
huts, a few palm-trees, some hundreds of miserable
Arabs, a plain, ugly, military station, and the troop
of soldiery.

She was the only white woman there — the only
white woman within hundreds of miles. There was
not a person she could be companionable with, except
her husband. He was very busy with his work.
Sometimes she was afraid.

The life of the natives, so wonderful at fii-st,

VIGNETTES i73

ceased to interest. The evening gallop with her
husband for a mile or two over the sands ceased to
be delightful. They seemed to have said all the
things they had to say. She got lonely.

Thoughts of the old girlish life — so far back in
her life no^" — gnawed like hunger. She was tired.
She lost her colour, and grew pale and thin. She
sickened. She sank, and then she died.

One promise she extracted. She would not be
buried in the desert ; she would be very unhappy
lying alone in the sand. She wanted to be taken
home to France, to Paris. She would be happy
sleeping always near Paris.

He bravely kept his promise. The soldiers got
oil tins, and cut them and resoldered them and made
a coffin. She was placed in it, and more sheets of
tin were soldered on the top. Next a rough wooden
coffin case was made. The coffin was hoisted to the
back of a camel. Thus she started her journey
homewards.

The husband rode alongside — rode northwards
with his bride and Arab attendants. It was the
hot time of the year. He did not feel the heat.
He thought of other things than the heat. Slowly,
over the featureless dunes they journeyed, his bride
and he.

Each night, when camp was pitched, the coffin
was carried into his tent. From his case he took
a bundle of roses, dried, withered and crumpled, but
they had been in her wedding-bouquet, and he placed
them on the coffin. Being a Catholic, he lit candles
and prayed for the peace of her soul. Then he lay
down alongside her and slept.

174 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

He did this for many days and nights. And in
time he got to the edge of civilisation. A train
hurried them to Algiers. A boat hurried them across
the bright waters of the Mediterranean. A train
hurried them to Paris— her Paris, and there she was
laid to rest in the cool earth near where she was
born.

Not much of a story. But worth remembering.
For it is a little bit of the tragedy that goes with
men who serve their country in distant parts.

All, messieurs !

He stood at a distance, bowed and smirked. He
was fleshy and tawny and black-bearded, and I
think there was some cunning in his eyes. His fez
was claret-hued, and his gandoura was dark blue.
In one hand was a handkerchief tied in a bundle —
weighted with sand.

Ah, messieurs !

We told him we had no illusions. We knew our
characters well enough — and something of the
character of each other. We did not believe in sand
divination. We suggested he was a rogue.

Ah, messieurs !

We were not tourists ; we had no money to
waste ; we knew it was all foolery ; how could sand
tell the future ? In a civilised country he would be
tossed into prison for a charlatan.

Ah, messieurs 1 We were unkind. Not really
unkind ; it was our fun— he knew we did not mean
what we said. He did not ask for money ; he just
wanted to show. He was not expensive. No money,
nothing, unless he was right.

VIGNETTES i75

Well, how much ?

Ah, messieurs ! His usual charge was ten francs
each — oh, very cheap ! Really messieurs, very cheap.
See ! Four messieurs, all good gentlemen, he would
tell the fortunes of the four of us for one napoleon —
one small napoleon — very little to good gentlemen
like us.

We had dined well, and wined well, and we had
our coffee and our cognac and our cigarettes, and
the world was a place to be happy in.

Just for the fun of the thing we agreed.

So we withdrew a little from the Arab cafe, and
reclined within the feathery shadow of the trees.
The night was warm.

He sat on the ground in front of us. From his
skirt he produced two candles, lit them, and placed
them on either side. He untied his handkerchief,
and a mound of powdery, pepper-coloured sand fell
loose. He ran the palm of his hand over it and
smoothed it. He raised his cunning eyes.

Ah, messieurs ! Would one of us press a hand
upon the sand. One did.

Carefully he examined the indentations. Then
with his own hand he brushed the sand level. With
two fingers quivering he ran lines over the sand.
He made little delving pressures. With pats he
obliterated some of the pressures, muttered thought-
fully, and made strokes in the sand — a sort of dot and
dash telegraph system of signs. He did this thrice.
Humph ! He had to think it over. He consulted a
small book. He rubbed out and made more dots
and more dashes.

Ah, monsieur ! And the bright, cunning eyes

176 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

gave a glance upward. IMonsieur had come a long
journey. Monsieur was troubled about something
in his own country — what, not quite clear ; but
monsieur was troubled. Have no fear, all would be
right. Ah ! very sad — very sad, indeed. Monsieur
had experienced disappointments. But do not worry.
See ; see — yes ; it was quite plain, quite marked ;
monsieur wanted something to happen, something
very important ; monsieur thought much about it.
It was all right ; very soon monsieur would have
what he wanted. Quite sure. Humph ! Very deter-
mined man, monsieur. Very strong character. Very
determined, want his own way. (A quick look from
the weazel eyes.) Will succeed. One, two —
humph ! — four, six, eight, three, five, seven — yes — not
immediately, something very important will happen
in monsieur's life ; very plain ; very marked. You
expect ; tell me true, monsieur, you expect. Ah !
Yes ! Me right, you see ; me always right. Me not
like other sand diviners who just pretend.

We smile and light fresh cigarettes. The sand
is tossed, smoothed, and a second British fist is planted
on it.

Another story ; a variant on possibilities, with an
appeal to personal conceit. The sand diviner will
not be hastened. He is deliberate. When we hint
we have had enough of the fooling he simulates
indignation : He is a true man ; he is much interested ;
he takes money, but better than money is looking
into the future — the eternal, mysterious sand from
Ai-abia, trodden by the Prophet, knows all things — ■
things gone, things to come — and he, marabout, can
read the story in the sand.

VIGNETTES i77

He tells the four of us our fortunes — and I am
sorry to admit I forget most of them. Anyway,
with appropriate checks, all was to be well in time.

The night was dreamy, and, though the experience
excited at first, we were soon wearied. We had
" assisted " at a very pleasant dinner, seasoned with
the persiflage of friendship. We threw our napoleon
to the sand diviner, bade him a prosperous career,
went back to the Arab cafe, and started on cigars.

CHAPTER XV

AMONG THE KABYLES

I HAVE been sitting outside the little mud mosque
in this high-poised Kabylie North Africa village of
Taourit Beni Menguellet, and have watched the death
of the day. It was no gorgeous sunset to rhapsodise
about. It was tragic. It was as though some
monster of these Djurdjura Mountains had seized
the sun, torn it to pieces, and strewn the hills with
dark red blood.

Here is a great jumble of ochreish hills, and the
heights of the Djurdjura, grey and verdureless in the
blaze of noon, are mauve in the failing light. The
peaks are a ragged silhouette against deep azure.
Far below, heavy gloom fills the valleys, and the
mists begin to trail.

Every hill-top in this land of Kabylie has its
village, so that each ridge is suggestive of a cock's
comb. Where the hill stretches and heaves like the
back of a dromedary there is a village. There is not
a house in the black valleys nor on the slopes. But
not an eminence lacks a cluster of huts. The Kabyles
are a hill people, and would die were they to live on
the plains. The soil is poor, sandy and rocky. Yet
Kabylie is more closely populated than Holland, and
there is much growing of olives and figs and apricots
and grapes and sweet acorns.

178

AMONG THE KABYLES i79

Folks generally think of Africa as desert and
camel caravans, and heat that plays like a sea. The
region here, however, is like the Tyrol. This morning,
before light came, and it was three o'clock in the
morning as I put my mule to the broken, rocky,
zig-zagging tracks, I shivered with the cold. The
wrapping of a heavy cloak about me did not resist
the teeth of the night air. I came into this region
to see the Kabyles at home, the people who are
Numidian in stock, Berbers who were here before
the Arabs came, and who were never conquered by
the tides of invasion which surged along the African
coast, neither by Turks, Romans, Carthaginians nor
Vandals, and were the last people to yield to the
yoke of the foreigner when the French laid hold
of Algeria.

They speak a jargon of their own. They are
Mohammedan in faith, but not strict, for custom
has sovereignty over the law of the Koran. The
women are unveiled, and hold a higher place than
Islam gives to females. There is no polygamy, but
the Kabyle has no scruples in getting rid of a
woman when she is scraggy and withered, and taking
to himself another wife who is younger and plumper.
The Arab is clean, but loves the wandering life of
the tents on the desert, and is happiest when he is
drowsing away hot hours within the shadow. The
Kabyle is one of the dirtiest creatures on earth ; he
never washes. But he is patriotic, loves his village,
and slaves from his boyhood to his burial.

Now, when the invaders came, some of them must
have stayed and got merged in the Kabyle race.
So there is no distinctiveness of feature. Some oi

i8o THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

the people are as dark as those to the south of the
Sahara ; others have the soft tones of Italy ; others
are as fair-faced and blue-eyed as the Saxon. I met
several red-whiskered Kabyles.

The Oriental woman is not always a thing of
beauty ; but the Kabyle woman is famous for her
looks. Both here, and down at the village of Ait
Sidi Said, where I was this morning, I saw lovely
creatures, corsetless and shoeless, picturesque but
shy, and scurrying to their hovels, after having a
peep at the stranger picking a way through the mire
of their alleys. When I levelled my camera at them
shrill-voiced shrieks sounded for the young girls,
more curious, to come awaj^ From cavernous huts
came demands that little Ourdia and Bahia and
Ferroudja should hide themselves, or evil would come
from the glance of the foreigner.

The costumes were daring — red and yellow —
always red and yellow. The jackets were of the
reddest of red, and the skirts w^ere of the yellowest
of yellow. The women wore little skull-caps of red
trimmed v/ith yellow. From their ears hung circles
of silver studded with coral. Heavy and barbaric
silver and coral ornaments circled their necks. The
jackets were all clasped with the same sort of brooch —
a silver filigree triangle brooch the size of a small
hand. Crude bands of silver jangled at the wrists
and ankles. Wlien a woman wore a coral-studded
ornament in front of her little cap, that was a sign
she was the mother of a male child.

Picture a frightened-eyed, lissom girl, soft-skinned
and black-haired, arrayed in red and yellow, and at
every movement making a jangle with her silver

AMONG THE KABYLES i8i

and coral decorations, and you have a Kabyle girl
standing before you.

The Kabyles are poor to starvation ; but no
Kabyle woman is too poor to own a mass of jewellery.

In the pant of this afternoon I sat just beyond
the village, where a path dips towards a well, half
a mile away. The light was warm and the air rare,
and the shouts of tatter-shu'ted youngsters to the
goats they were herding a mile off could be plainly
heard. The path was cactus-bound — big-spiked, green,
flatfish-like in stalk, crawling the sandy earth and
rising and twisting fantastically ; and the red-and
yellow-skinned prickly pear — the hues a little softer
than the garments of the women — were standing
like gaudy blobs against the blue, blue of the sky —
the real, unmistakable, genuine blue, with no grey
in it such as you have in northern climes.

Groups of Kabyle women were fetching water.
Their jars and jugs were quaint. Some were like
enormous pumpkins painted chocolate, and these
they carried on their heads. Most were long, graceful,
slim-necked jars, with two square-topped but softly
curving handles, Greek in design, but with yellow
and black Etruscan designs on then- chocolate surface.
These were carried on the shoulder.

It was like a sheet ripped from an eastern story-
book to see these flaming-garbed women down
amongst the pale greens of luxuriant vegetation near
the gurgle of the water, to hear their laughter, to see
them swing their jars into position, and then, with
bodies fii-m but limbs free and agile, start climbing
to Taourit Beni Mengucllet. But when the foreigner
was spied they gave little calls of alarm, and with

i82 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

arms raised to hide the face — the spontaneous action
of the Moslem woman, who does not mind what other
parts of her body you see— sidled up another path.

Then came Ariski, a big, crop-bearded Kabyle, who
did not like me looking at the women of his village.
He sat down beside me and wrapped his camel-
hair burnous about him, and cried to the young
women to go another way. He told me the young
Kabyle woman was not to be trusted — though I
thought I might have been. When a Kabyle woman
forgets her virtue the whole village takes her to a
waste spot on the mountain side. Then a grave
is dug. The husband throws a stone at her. Every-
body throws stones at her. When she is dead and
mangled her body is thrown into the grave — and
so good-night to pretty Eldja.

A Kabyle village, straddling a hill ridge, makes
a pleasant picture when viewed from a distance. There
is nothing pleasant on close inspection. The houses,
built crooked, are of unbaked mud bricks, jutting
inconsequentially into the narrow lane, which is rock-
floored and vilely uneven. Sometimes there is a
little courtyard and the askew door is carved with
circles, saw-edged, and with parallel lines cut to
join other circles in the lower part of the door. More
often it is just a square hovel with neither window
nor chimney. The door is large ; the floor is of
mud ; a side panel, like a seat, is just a slab of mud.
The place is dim to the eye when first entered. But
soon you see things. In a corner is a woman weaving
a carpet. The strings are hung from the roof to a
beam near the floor, and this beam keeps the threads
taut. She has no shuttle, but with fingers she works

AMONG THE KABYLES 183

the transverse strings in and out, and when the
stretch is completed she presses it down with a flat-
edged strip of wood.

On one side are several enormous jars, each of
which could easily hold a man. In these are kept
wheat and clothes and jewellery ; they are the
cupboards of the household. Chickens are pecking
about the earthen floor. A mule is tethered in a
dark part, a cow is behind a fence in another, and
three goats are bleating in a recess. Everybody
and everything lives or is kept in one chamber,
family, animals, fowls. The stench is not appetising.

There are no schools. The Kabyle cannot read-
He knows nothing whatever of the outside world.
But he is industrious, and he spends his entire life
scratching sustenance from these wild, inliospitable
hills of the Djurdjura, into which he has been pressed
by the invaders of northern Africa through tens of
centuries. He can make vegetation grow where
another man could rear nothing but red sand and
pebbles. On a patch ten yards by twelve he can
grow vegetables for himself, his wife and several
children. He has no idea of collective property.
Independence is one of his characteristics, and every
man owns his own property. There is no sharing.
One man may have the land and another man own
the trees on it. Two individuals may own one
tree ; each has certain branches. The idea of several
men reaping equally the produce of certain land is
beyond the Kabyle. What is his must be his entirely.
He is unique in the Mussulman world.

The Kabyles, though a separate race, have never
been a nation in the matter of administration. Yet

i84 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

now and then, such as when the French were striving to
subdue the country, the tribes have confederated and
fought the unweJcome strangers. The Kabyle's
interests are confined to his village and the patch of
earth which he nurtures. Each village is a little
republic, absolutely autonomous.

My friend Ariski took me to the djemaa, or council
chamber, of the village. There we were joined by
Kabyles who, having finished their labours on their
patches, came to talk with the foreigner. The
djemaa was as bare as a barn, with a doorway but
no door, and slabs of slate, rising in tiers, acted as
seats. It was not unlike the interior of a common
Russian bath. The old men, thin and emaciated,
with skins wrinkled and loose, with eyes watery and
teeth reduced to discoloured fangs, sat in their torn
and grimy cloaks, and with foul but once crimson
skull-caps on the backs of their heads, squatted cross-
legged on the slabs. They were the elders of Taourit
Beni Menguellet, and constituted the forum. Their
chief, the a7iim, a sort of mayor, had been elected by
popular favour, and approved by the French
authorities, though this is little more than a for-
mality. The anim rules ; he is a kind of Pooh-Bah.
But his power is only mandatory, and a meeting
of the old men in the dje^naa can upset his decrees.

The younger men, who stood about the doorway,
and whom I had seen out on the hills gathering
figs, and laying them out on basket screens to dry
in the sun, were tall, and scorched to the colour oi
bronze. They were lithe and muscular. Their
countenances were drawn, but in the glint of the
eyes, the fulness of the nostrils, and the straightness

AMONG THE KABYLES 185

of the lips was proof of their valour of spirit. Like
all hillmen, they are quarrelsome by nature.
Villages are at enmity over bits of scarped rock, and
miniature wars, though not very bloody, are inces-
santh'- waged. There is hot passion between two
Kabyles. A vendetta begins. It spreads from man
and man to family and family, and then to village
and village, and the fighting continues for years —
long after the original dispute is forgotten.

One feels well out of the world here, looking over
a medley of stubble-chinned hills and the higher
wastes of mountains, which are khaki-clad. Kabyles,
with oaths in their throats, are far down the winding,
ribbon paths, and are whacking mules which, laden
with brushwood, are jerkily picking a way over the
rubble with which the track is strewn. A short
distance away is a group of crouching women, their
chins on their knees, resting beneath a marabout
tree — a tree made holy because, long, long ago, a
holy Mussulman was put to his rest beneath it.
In a cleft of the hill, where a trickle of moisture
oozes, is a wealth of electric blue thistles, and a stack
of white foxgloves spear straight upwards. The
dark green of the olive-trees contrasts with the light
green of the fig-trees. Far up the opposite hill a
roadway bulges like a nigger's lip.

Romance, fiction and fact hang over the land
like a mist. The Kabyle will tell you, when speaking
of the antiquity of his race, that long, long ago, when
the Berbers lived in a distant land, a maiden of the
people unfortunately, whilst a strange king was
passing, exposed more of her body than was proper,
owing to the wind blowing aside her attire. The

i86 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

king laughed. The tribe were ashamed, and that
night they departed and wandered till they came
amongst these mountains.

A lonely people, yet often revealing how, in ages
past, they have been influenced by Roman, Jewish
and Christian customs. Besides the Mussulman
festivals, many of these Berbers observe the Bou-Ini
[bonne annee, prosperous year), Junar (January),
and the feasts of springtime and autumn. Amongst
the fruit-trees are skulls — a relic of the heathen
sacrifices to appease the forces of Nature. Over the
doorway you may find a skull " for luck " ; and
that reminds one that when the Libyans invaded
Egypt they put the heads of oxen over the entrance
to their houses.

To-day the Kabyles are industrious. But in their
inter -tribal feuds before the French conquest no
quarter was given on either side. The men, and
even the boys, went on fighting to the last, urged
by the shouts and taunts and tears of the women.
Nothing but the interposition of a marabout availed
to stop the effort to exterminate the enemy and to
exact the price of blood. Prisoners were stabbed to
death. But the women were spared and were never
violated. When one village proceeded to attack
another, the women and children were always allowed
to pass out to a place of safety before hostilities
began.

In many of the houses I visited, the women had
painted strange signs in red and black — straight
lines representing rakes with five or seven teeth,
crescent moons, waving lines like running brooks,
six-pointed stars. These date back to early Phoeni-

AMONG THE KABYLES 187

cian days. The " streams " are the Egyptian symbol
of life ; the six-pointed star is Solomon's seal on the
face of Baal ; while the " rake " is the candlestick of
the temple of Jerusalem.

Short though my stay has been amongst the
Kabyles, I have learnt to respect them. Unlike the
dreamy Arab, they toil persistently, are hardened to
fatigue, and are not worried by any change of tem-
perature. Their ideas of trade differ. The nomad
trades by leisurely exchange of commodities, but the
Kabyle is keenly alive to the value of society in
business, politics and everything else.

The Kabyles are really a white race. With their
slack observance of Mohammedan law — as compared
with the Arabs — and their closer relations with the
French, they are more easily brought under pacifying,
influence, though their prejudices have to be carefully
respected. Their women have more liberty than
Arab women, and there are plenty of instances of
French officers marrying native girls.

CHAPTER XVI

THE KALEIDOSCOPE OF TUNIS

I SAID it was garbage. My friend, being artistic,
sniffed gently, and suggested the scent of jasmine —
or geranium he added in a quick afterthought.
GarHc : I held that the aroma was garlic. Yes, a
little, flavoured with the perfume of the narcissus,
said the artist. And seasoned with dead fish, said
I. We compromised by agreeing that the odours of
Tunis were Oriental.

In a photograph you get the whitewashed, tipsy
picturesqueness of the East. You get the veiled
damsels in baggy trousers. You see lethargic Moors
lounging in front of cafes. But a photograph does
not provide you with the thick, hot, reeking stench
of the beautiful East. Not yet. Science, hoAvever,
is progressive.

If you love fat women, come to Tunis.

Real fat, podgy, waddling, wobbling women — not
ladies just inclined to stoutness.

The Tunisian — Moslem or Jew — likes bulk. He
likes his wife to look like an overcharged balloon.
He likes her to be so fat that she hobbles and rolls.

The Tunisian woman is Humpty-Dumpty and
Daniel Lambert reincarnated as one person. No
scraggy, angular, Gothic-framed females for the
Tunisian I A beauty specialist who tried to sell

t« 5

^

Z ^

THE KALEIDOSCOPE OF TUNIS 189

anti-fat in Tunis would have her establishment
wrecked for attempting to diminish the mammothian
loveliness of the fat Fatmas of the land.

Any itinerant showmen, despondent about the
circumference of their fat exhibits, can go to Tunis
and hire a ship-load. Only a showman must not
try to carry too many Tunisian women in one ship.
They would sink the ship.

A Tunisian girl is slim like other girls. As she
reaches the marriageable age she takes no exercise.
She gorges on kous-kous, which is farinaceous and
flesh-producing. The bigger and flabbier she is,
the more like a prize-fed pig she becomes, the more
lusciously alluring is she in the eyes of Hamid. The
Tunisian when he marries does not want learning.
An athletic, golfing, hockey-playing, tennis-whacking
girl would be indecent. He likes nice eyes. But he
must have fat.

Most IVIohammedan ladies shield their charms of
countenance with a soft white veil falling from just
below the eyes. The female Moslem of Tunisia has
her head swaddled in black. It is just as though,
before she went forth to the souk to market, her
husband tightly tied her head in a black bag, so tight
that the bag split and she can peer through the slit.

The Jewish women of Tunis do not veil. But
they knock the Mohammedan women sideways in
rich raiment, in jewellery, and in fat. The young
Tunisian Jewess is a vision of prettiness, but her
mother — well, well ! The Jewesses swaddle and
waddle the same as their Moslem neighbours. They
wear high-coned hats, just like the hat worn by the
fairy godmother who appears out of the fireplace ia

igo THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

the pantomime, when Cinderella sits lamenting she .
cannot go to the ball. From the apex hang folds '
of gauzy, filmy white — rather effective.

Take note that Tunis has a population of a
hundred thousand Mussulmans, fifty thousand Jews,
seventeen thousand Italians and INIaltese, and ten
thousand French. I copied these figures out of a
book.

The Englishman, when he goes to an Eastern
clime, fits himself into his new surroundings. The
Frenchman, never. He takes a bit of his beloved
Paris with him. So he has made the European
quarter of Tunis like a part of the gay city by the
Seine. There is a fine Avenue de France, and an
Avenue Jules Ferry — a broad boulevard, tree-girt,
with palms throwing their fronds wide. The magasins,
hotels and cafes are Parisian. Bands play ; rubber-
tyred victorias are overtaken by dashing motor-cars ;
the electric tramway sings ; the electric light flashes.
In the cool of the evening, charmingly dressed French-
v/omen take promenades with their chDdi'en.

The Frenchman sits in front of his favourite cafe,
and sips absinthe or anisette, or amer piquant or
cognac, or has bright-coloured syrups of grenadine
or citron, or framboise or groseille fantaisie, or he keeps
away the fever with vermouth or quinquina. Every
other Frenchman you meet has a bit of ribbon in
his buttonhole — a little tag of red, or green, edged
with yellow, or mauve. They indicate that the
wearers have been decorated for some service to
the State. The number of Frenchmen who have
done service to the State is legion.

They have no king to dub them knights, but they

THE KALEIDOSCOPE OF TUNIS 191

love theii' little bits of ribbon. It is an amiable
vanity. I sat at table with three Frenchmen, and
they all wore ribbons. I did not like to ask what
services they had done to the State.

Later on I was informed that, as I was a dis-
tinguished, etcetera, etcetera, writer, I could, by the
judicious expenditure of forty-five francs, get a
fine order from the Bey, which would entitle me to
a little bit of ribbon in my buttonhole, and a scintil-
lating decoration as large as a saucer — but this latter
would be an extra, and would have to be bought at
a jeweller's. I kept my forty-five francs.

In Tunis you hear more Italian spoken than
French, more Hebrew than Italian, more Ai'abie
than Hebrew, Italian and French put together.

The French look after the government, and run
the big shops. The Jews, as usual, are in finance,
and are all wealthy. The Italians, from Naples and
Sicily, are the working classes. The Moslems are
i everything, rich and poor, and sell anything from

I camels to attar of roses.

I

Let us saunter through the souks, the market
j places of the natives.

i Most of them are labyrinthine, whitewashed
I tunnels, with little holes at intervals in the roof,
i sufficient to let in some light, but not sufficient to
I let out much of the stink. Each way has its par-
I ticular trade. All the shops are windowless, square
i alcoves in the wall. All the passages are thronged

with the most multi-coloured, haggling, noisy throng

imaginable.

It is hot ; it is sweltering ; it is foetid. The

192 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

pomegranate and date merchant sits dreamy-eyed,
and mechanically sways a swish, like a horse's tail,
to keep off the Hies. The flies are fond of mutton,
and the seller of sheep stands before his store and
swings tAVO swishes. Gluttonous little beasts are
these myriad millions of Tunisian flies ! ^Vhy, even
the Jewish money-lenders keep the swish going over
their counters, fearing no doubt that the flies will
gobble their pelf.

There is a mixture of garb, as though the populace
had hurriedly dressed from the contents of a jumble-
shop. The low-class, unshaven Italian is gesticulatory^
collarless, has ill-fitting trousers, much stained, and
boots that are never cleaned. The Jew is partly
Arabic, partly European — and a fine mess he makes
of it. He wears a low-crowned, claret-hued fez.
which tickles the nape of his neck. His discoloured
jacket once came from Europe. His trousers are
Turkish, sagging, and particularly voluminous about
the sitting part. His calves are bare, but he is
wearing pointed French button-up boots, and his
socks are kept in place with elastic suspenders. The
town Tunisian dresses very much in the same way,
except that, instead of a jacket, he wears a gandoura,
a sort of overshirt, which does not come up to his
neck at the top and fails to come down to his heels
at the bottom.

There is a touch of effeminacy about the Tunisian.
He likes the rays of the sun. Sometimes he wears
tlie fez and sometimes the turban, generally of white
enlaced with yellow ; his gandoura may be of canary
yellow, hemmed with sage green ; or mauve with
an edge of grey ; or puce with black.

THE KALEIDOSCOPE OF TUNIS 193

All the bright young bucks have bunches of
jasmine bloom stuck over the ear. Some have
delicate features and refined hands. They pick their
way through the mire, and step on one side when a
broad-shouldered, hairy-chested, brown-baked and
tatter-clad Arab comes surging along with a bale
of goods upon his back.

We take our way up the noisome, clamorous
Rue de la Kasbah. The shops are busy. There
are no fixed prices ; all purchasing is done by
sqviabbling. Up passages, looking from the gloom
into a sea of eastern sunshine, are mosques, square -
towered and radiant-tiled, or with slim, needle -like
minarets. There are notices prohibiting the entrance
of any dog of a Christian, There is the clang of
hammers in the metal market. In the Souk Sekajine,
saddlers are energetic, making high-pommelled yellow
saddles and adorning them with ruby silks and
threads of gold. A shout, and we skip aside, for a
lad is running forward with little pots of thick coffee
- — a customer is to be entertained whilst he buys.
Thud ! thud ! thud ! and you are in the street of shoe-
makers, yellow-leather shoes with the heel beaten
down slouchwise. The fez-makers are pressing the
red caps into shape. A tremendous rabble in the
jewellery market — barbaric ornaments are being
hawked. Sellers and buyers screech at one another.
The deal finished, they go to a little government
office, an official examines, and the purchaser can
be satisfied there is no hanky-panky about the quality
of the gold or the genuineness of the gems.

Here is the Souk-et-Trout, bright with silks.
Round a corner, and we are in the Souk dcs Femmes.

H

194 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

Fat women — hundreds of fat women — shrouded in
white, and the Moslem women with their heads in
tight black bags, fbigering the fineries dear to their
heart.

The Bey, with his ladies, is at Marsa — a white heap
of garden-embowered residences on the fringe of
Tunis Bay, just beyond the crumbled heaps of stones
which tell where glorious Carthage was. So there
is no trouble in visiting the Dar-el-Bey, the town
palace of His Highness.

No gorgeousness from without. The outer walls
are as simple as the walls of a stable. That is where
the poetry comes in — the blank, silent wall and the
mind dancing in wonder concerning things that
happen beyond, in the scented courts of a great
pasha.

The picture is of a bulbous-paunched and rheum-
eyed old reprobate, loimging on silken cushions,
sucking a long-tubed water-pipe, and watching
dusky maidens in diaphanous attire dancing on the
rare carpets which decorate the marble. Musicians
play lusciously. The waters of the fountain fall
rhythmically. The sunshine is like a bath of
warmth. The snow-cooled sherbet is the most
exquisite beverage. It must be a grand thing to be
a rich Bey. That is the picture.

And yet, allowing for the mystic charm of life
in a land where it is constant afternoon, I ventured
the thought that life was rather boresome within
these marbled and fantastic Moorish halls. It must
have been particularly boresome to the stout ladies
who never went to the opera, nor the theatre, nor the

THE KALEIDOSCOPE OF TUNIS 195

races, nor picnicked, nor dined at restaurants, nor
sat outside cafes and chatted with their husband's
friends.

Through square -set doors, crowned with black
and white niarble, I passed from marble court to
marble court. The sun blazed from the bluest of
skies — but a soft coolness prevailed. No houris were
there to trip in dance ; only a smoke-soaked old
Arab, who knew one word of English and three
words of French, and who, I was well aware, was
interested in the baksheesh he was likely to
receive.

The arches are Moorish, lovely curves, prolonga-
tion of the horns of the moon. All the stones are
white and black marble. The heavy doors are
carved. The apartments are dim, shaded, ornate.
The corridors are breasted with tiles — rare old tiles —
the making of which is a lost art. The colouring is
gentle though the patterns be crude, and you find
yellow Ai'abic tiles, black Spanish tiles, brilliant
Italian tiles. White marble pillars, with delicate
cornice tracery, give dignity to court and hall —
pillagings from the buried city of the Carthaginians.
The roofs are arched ; the colouring is red and green,
with the cuttings inlaid with gold. What looks like
a lace scarf runs dado -wise near the roof — it is nuksh-
hadida, arabesque plaster-work. The furniture is
shoddy — gold and plush.

Even in the throne -room, with a big gold and plush
arm-chair as throne, the Eastern flavour of the scene
is spoilt with a hideous European carpet. The floors
are in mosaic. If you are in the mood you can weave
all kinds of pretty Oriental stories about life in the

196 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

palace of the Bey. But you had better keep your
eye shut to the shoddiness.

To your carriage. The Arab driver whips up
the horses, and off you go, jolting over dusty roads
through the Bab-Saadoun and thence to Bardo, one
of the exquisite palaces of the Bey. It is white and
peaceful, and seems to nestle amongst the luxuriant
vegetation of an Arabian Night's dream.

Marble courts and marble courts, all white and
black marble. Carved doors lead into dim chambers.
The shadowy galleries are upheld by pillars of white
marble. The decorations are accentuated, chiefly
green and gold ; there is much stucco frescoing ;
there are gaudy carpets, shoddy clocks. The justice
hall is a place of beauty, especially the avenue of
white marble pillars. The audience-chamber and
the throne-room — what with gimcrack candelabra
and yellow silk cushions on the settees, bought in
the worst period of the nineteenth century — are
showy.

How is it that the people here lost their distinctive
art when they came in contact with Europeans ?
Yet Tunis is not Arabian. It is really Turkish. And
the Turk knows as little about art as a cow knows
about geometry.

It was in what is called the " low " quarter of
Tunis. The folk were of the mongrel type you find
on the African coast — a mixture of Arab, Greek,
Italian, Turk and Maltese. Features were coarse and
skins were blotchy brown-black, and lips were
lecherous and eyes sensual. The men looked ruffians,
and the shapeless women were slatterns. It was a

THE KALEIDOSCOPE OF TUNIS 197

place where the waters of the Mediterranean had
cast up the human scum of centuries.

Pirates, warriors, slaves, desperadoes, outcasts,
the drift of many lands — who were their sires, and
whence did their mothers come ?

They were drinking deeply and laughing loudly
in that hot, steamy room. A great, bull-like man,
in the baggy trousers of the East, his shirt loose, and
showing a knotted throat — a man whose skin had no
colour in it but the sallowness of many races, whose
eyes were black and blood-streaked, whose hair was
crispy like that of the Numidian, and whose beard
was short-cropped, the man I would select as a real
specimen of the Barbary pirate— brought the drinks
and the coffee and the hubble-bubble water-pipes.

The air is putrid. A Jew-faced man is hammering
at a piano. A Turk-bellied individual is scratching
a violin between his knees. A sickly-faced, smudge-
eyed Maltese, dressed like a Moor, is rattling his
fingers against a tom-tom. An old man spasmodically
shakes a tambourine. They are playing an Oriental
air.

Six women are on a platform, and they are shriek-
ing in song — and much of it is like the cry of agony
they would give if red-hot hatpins were being stuck
into their flesh.

They are disgustingly plump — no, fat is the word.
They are in reds and greens and golds, and their coin-
decked caps are bright, and their great trousers of
startling stripes are like caricatures of sailors' belong-
ings. From the top of the trousers to the breast,
the thinnest of flesh-tinted covering. You may see
the folds of the fat.

igS THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

The men leer at the fat women, and the women,
who are sweating profusely, show their teeth and
catch cigarettes thrown at them.

The din of the music crashes, and the women
shake their finery and throw back their heads and
howl.

A tall, heavy-featured woman rises. She stands,
sullen, with arms akimbo, like an athlete showing
his form. Her body is still, but her breasts quiver
and her jewellery tinkles. Then she dances — a.
shuffle. Then she writhes her body. It is an orgy
of suggestiveness.

But it is the dance of the East. It is the dance
of the pasha's harem ; it is the dance of the disreput-
able cafe ; it is the dance which every little Arab
girl tries to learn — long years before she knows its
meaning.

The scum men of the Orient, from anaemic pale-face
to thick-lipped, ebony negro, lean forward. With
drowsy, blear eyes they watch the woman. They
are not enthusiastic. They never applaud. They
drink and smoke and spit, and keep their eyes on
the lewd posturing of the dancer.

CHAPTER XVn

THE SOUK-EL-ATTARINE

Mohammed Sadok Anoun bade us be seated. He
sat straddle -legged in the very centre of his shop.
It was a tiny shop, about the square of a restaurant
table for four, and he could reach every article in
it with his long, thin hands, which had henna on the
nails, though the yellow stain suggestetl he smoked
too many cigarettes. He was a good Moslem, and
he wore a long, loose gandoura of sage green,
and his turban was white, with strands of gold.
He was pale, alabaster-cheeked, but his manners
were soft, and his actions had the languor of the
Orient.

The air was a dainty blend of many flowers. For
this was the Souk-el- Attarine (the Street of Perfumes),
in the Arab quarter of Tunis. All the shops sold the
essence of sweet flowers. The Souk was dark and
cool, but hot sunshine poured through one of the
gates, and the warmth mingled with the fragrance.
The dealers were sitting in their shops, and about them
were many bottles of distilled blooms, quaint-shaped
bottles with Arabic inscriptions, and silk sachets of
dried leaves, and candles of multi-hued wax. Arabs.
in the radiant attire which the Tunisian loves, were
sauntering through the street, and bulky, white-
draped and black- veiled women were hobbling along.

199

200 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

Two daughters of Islam were on the step which
w^as all of shop-floor that the maison of Mohamnied
Sadok Anoun had. Beautiful, of course. All veiled
women of the Orient are beautiful, because they are
romantic, mysterious, unseeable. These Arab ladies
might have had sallow complexions and puckered
foreheads ; but the veil was a curtain, and it suited
my mood to think they were as lovely as the houris
of Paradise. They called each other " Guelbi "
(Heart of Mine), and " Kjeira " (the Pearl) — which w-as
pretty, and satisfied us they were young. Theii' hands
were soft. So were their voices. They bovight kohl,
dark pigment to make their eyebrows arch like the
moon — I stole that simile from an Arab love-song —
and to pencil their eyelashes and make more sparkling
their eyes, which I am sure were ravishing.

Then they bought scent. Pearl put out her

plump little hand and stretched her arm, which had

the down of the peach upon it, and Mohammed

touched the warm flesh with the stopper of his jasmine

bottle. It was exquisite. A thousand petals —

escaping like good genii from a story in the Thousand

Nights Entertainment — breathed all the charm of

jasmine.

" A soul-dissolving odour, to Invite
To some more lovely mystery,"

though Kreira probably never heard of Shelley. But
Heart of Mine demanded musk. So she was a
saintly little woman was Guelbi ; else why did she
demand musk ? The Prophet liked musk ; he
believed it was pleasing to Allah. Did not Moses,
dissatisfied with his own breath, w^ash his mouth
with musk, and the angels tell him his breath had

I

THE SOUK-EL-ATTARINE 201

spoilt the scent of musk and he must fast ten days ?
Read your Koran, and note that the epistle which
Solomon sent to the Queen of Sheba was scented
with musk, and was dropped into the Queen's bosom
by a lapwing. Truly, Heart of Mine must be a devout
maiden and repeat her prayers every night — though
the Moslems do say that women have no souls.
And the Prophet used to say, " The two things
I love best in all the world are women and per-
fumes."

WTien Kreira and Guelbi waddled away,
Mohammed Sadok Anoun was prepared to be the
humble slave of messieurs. The scents of Tunisia
we want, the most delicate aromas of flowers, grown
in the gardens of Nabeul, and nurtured under sensuous
breezes fi'om the Gulf d'Hammamet. No adulterated
essence, no artificial perfumes, but the very heart
of the flowers. The scents are for London — grimy,
foggy, far away — to touch the dresses of women
before going to the dance, to fill the boudoir with
their languorous, pungent odours and provoke
thoughts of Tunisia. Did he understand ?

Mohammed's pale countenance was suffused with
a smile. He outstretched his hand with the long,
lean fingers. His store was at our service.

Slowly he ran his eye over his jumble of phials —
like many shelves in a medicine -cupboard. He has
the essence orientale du harem de geranium rosa d'ceillet
sauvage. He picked down the bottle as though he
were a collector about to show one of his most precious
possessions. He held it up towards the sunlit gate,
tilted it, extracted the stopper, gave each of us a
little on the sleeve. Then he leaned back, and an

H*

202 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

expectant look came into his eyes. Eh ! What
thought we of that ? Did our senses reel ? Was
there not poetry in the air ? Was ever harem more
inviting than when this scent hung heavy in the
curtained apartments ? Saxon-like, we said it was
" pretty strong."

All ! the lilac, then ; so gentle, so insinuating, a
whisper of a scent ! Or the iris, like a breath of
beauty ! Now, mark you, this was very rare —
ambergris ! Had we ever played with amber beads,
and, when the warmth of the hand drew their virtue,
had we bent over and drunk in the evasive yet capti-
vating smell ? Just a drop on the sleeve, messieurs.
There ! Or geranmm, which suggested repose ? Or
the scent of the sandal-tree ; have it near, and there
would float in the mind thoughts of warm afternoons
spent reclining in groves on the edge of the great
desert, and the vision would come when we were
thousands of miles away.

Jasmine, we requested. Ah, yes ! He had the
finest jasmine in all the Souk-el- Attarine. Jasmine
is the bloom which the rich young Arabs of Tunisia
carry in the ear. Jasmine is the flower which the
Arab girls play with when idling on the house-tops
in the haze of the day, dreaming of their husbands
that are to be. " The back of your hands, messieurs.
Less than a drop. Is it not delightful ? "

Yes, delightful. And how much for twenty
francs ? He held up a diminutive, flowered bottle.
Wliat, only so much ? Not so much ; it must be
weighed, and the bottle would not be full. Well,
make it up. He clasped his hands, swung his body
forward in obeisance, and gave thanks.

THE SOUK-EL-ATTARINE 203

He produced a small mahogany case. It con-
tained scales, such as chemists use when weighing
costly drugs. He placed the bottle in one scale
and then he put weights and a nail, a bit of cork,
and a bit of screwed-up paper, till he had the correct
balance with the bottle. In the opposing scale to the
bottle he put a weight, a tiny brass ball, to represent
the value of twenty francs' worth of jasmine perfume.
How very cautiously he poured the scent into the
bottle ! How often he held up the strings of the
scale to make sure he was not giving too much !
Now the bottle sagged. Too much ! So he poured
a fcAv drops back again. Now, too little. He poured
a couple of drops into the bottle. Exact ! He held
up the scales to show how even they were.

A little drawer was pulled out and a cork selected.
But he also found a glass stopper ; that will be for
use at home. Another drawer was opened, and he
brought forth a cake of wax. A candle was lit and
he held the wax before the flare till it was plastic.
He squeezed a hood rovmd the cork and the bottle-
neck, so that the scent should not evaporate. Another
drawer, and from it was produced a tin cylinder
and the bottle was packed in cotton-wool. After
that the cylinder was carefully rolled in paper and
the ends fastened with sealing-wax.

It took Mohammed ten minutes to do all this.
He did everything deliberately and leisurely. Tunis
is a city of plenty of time. He bowed again, just as
Moslems bow when entering the mosque.

But we want more scent ? The orange -flower —
that is dainty. The verveine ; how soothing and
refreshing ; madame will be pleased. The heliotrope

204 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

— " the back of your hands, messieurs, just half a
drop " — oh ! the deheiousness of the heUotrope, A
httle bottle. Essence of apple is the sweetness of
the early morning, essence of pear for the hushfiil
afternoon, drowsy carnation to play with the senses
in the early night.

He has many scents — the citron, the bergamotte,
the opoponau, the miel, the benjoin. " Your hands,
messieurs ! The sleeve of your coat ! The lapel of
your coat ! "

It is all confusing. Aroma mixes with aroma.
The nostrils get tired of discriminating. Well, a
small bottle of benjoin. Excellent choice ; he could
recommend it. Distinguished foreign ladies always
liked it.

Messieurs were good judges of scents. Their
taste was refined. They had been good to buy so
much. And there was a madame — in England ? He
would like to see England. A present, a httle bottle
of essence of violet for madame ; no, really a pre-
sent. Mohammed Sadok Anoun was proud of his
perfumes.

We put our purchases in our pockets. Mohammed
bowed and muttered in Arabic, " Blessings be upon
thee, and upon thee blessings."

The atmosphere of the Souk was heavy and humid
with the blend of many aromas. Swarthy Tunisians
were spending dilatory hours making their choice
at the shops. Dealers bowed to us : maybe one
day we would buy from them. Bundles of white
mystery, women in couples, stood before the attar
bottles, and talked to each other about their favourite
flowers. Through the Souk were wandering bekkhar

THE SOUK-EL-ATTARINE 205

(mendicants), who wafted burning incense before
passers-by, and received alms in return. It was all
dreamy and luscious, and fantastic and Eastern.
And when we went out into the sunshine the warm
fresh air was very good to breathe.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE HOLY CITY OF AFRICA

Ali Hassan said I ought to see the Aissiouas, but
was sure I would be sick if I did. Still, as I was in
Kairouan, the holiest Mussulman city in all Africa,
it would be a pity if I failed. The ceremony took
place regularly every Friday evening at sundown in
the zaouia (monastery), just outside the Gate of
Djelladin. Friday was impossible. He knew the head
of the sect, and a service could be arranged. So be it.

The Aissiouas are strict Moslems and followers of
Aissa, a Moroccan, who taught that the surest way
to please Allah, reach the realms of bliss, and pass
eternity with the most beautiful houris, was by
self-torture on earth.

It was the hot hour of the day, and the white
walls of Kairouan reflected heat in the eyes like the
glow of a mirror. It was a dead, diy heat, and each
breath was like drawing flame into the lungs. Ali
Hassan smiled when I panted. He wore a gandoura,
a long shirt of red wine hue edged with green. Black
hairs stubbled his chin, and I inquired why he had
not shaved. He told me Mohammedans did not
cut the beard for forty days after the death of a
relative, and it was eleven days since his sister was
laid to rest amongst the sand outside the walls of
Kairouan.

206

THE HOLY CITY OF AFRICA 207

It was so hot that the way was nigh deserted.
An old woman, with her leathern and wrinkled cheeks
ill-concealed by the haik which was drawn over the
head, led a decrepit old man, who whined, and with
his fingers pulled down the skin to show the red
sockets where eyes had once been. A gift to the
blind would be marked to my credit by the good
Allah.

A camel came with a rhythmic swing along the
sandy road — a slow pace, heedless of time. On the
hump was a bundle of black cloth. Between the
folds I saw a face, yellow-ashen, cadaverous, with
eyes sunken and dull. Saliva was dripping from
bleached lips.

" Yes," said Ali Hassan, " when a Moslem is like
to die he travels many days so that he may breathe his
last in Kairouan, for the Koran says that he who
dies in a holy city goes to Paradise at once."

There was the soft pat of a drum and the wail of
a pipe. Here was the zaouia, and at the door the
head-man met me. He was big and sallow, and
bearded and turbaned, and his right eye looked as
though it had been seared with a poker. Across a
little courtyard and then into a half-open chamber.
There was a stone seat, mat-spread on the farther
side, and I sat down.

Soft-hued carpets were strewn on the floor, and
on the carpets were sitting men in the costume of
the Orient. They were all brown-skinned, and they
were singing in a minor key to the thump of the hand-
drum and the plaintive cry of the pipe. They were
pale beneath their brownness. Their cheeks were
hollow, and their lips were blue ; their eyes glistened

208 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

with fanaticism. They were the eyes of men who
seemed to have been in pain. But they took no
notice and droned their song.

The cadence rose, and the pace of the song
increased and became a throb. A man jumped to
his feet, left his shoes aside, and stood on the stone
floor see -sawing his body. Two men jumped up and
cast their shoes. Pressing their shoulders against
the shoulders of the first man, they began to see-saw
in unison.

Other men sprang up ; they stood tight-shouldered
in a row. They were all singing, but huskily and
heavily. The tom-tom sounded louder ; the see-
sawing was faster. Backward and forward, back-
ward and forward, with increasing heave, and at
each heave they gasped from the bottom of their
throats.

A slim fellow sprang to his feet. His figure was
bent, and he began prowling and clawing at the air
as though he were in the dark and searcliing for
some unknown doorway. He was trembling ; he
was in anguish ; he was horrible to look upon. He
pulled off his shirt and stood naked to the waist.
He threw aside his hat, and his head was clean-
shaven except for the long Mohammed tuft at the
back. He writhed and twisted his body ; his twisted
lips showed he felt the torture of the damned. He
ran to the priest, fell on his knees, and was kissed
on the forehead. He stood upright, his whole frame
in an aspen quiver. He fell on his knees. A man
took a long steel rapier and thrust it through the
flesh of the shoulder.

Not a groan— but the tom-tom was louder and

THE HOLY CITY OF AFRICA 209

the chant became more guttural and vehement, and
the see-saw of the bodies became faster.

The young fanatic, with raised arm, held the
rapier in its place. A second rapier was thrust into
the other shoulder. He held that with the other
hand. A man seized a mallet, and, beating time to
the hot breath of the chant, drove the rapier in
farther and farther. The blood ran.

The rapiers were withdrawn. They were brought
to me. I turned my head on one side. The mallet-
holder ran his finger along the blades and whisked
the blood upon the floor. The young fanatic sank
before the head-man, buried his face in his breast,
was kissed and soothed.

" Hu !-Hu ! Hu !-Hu ! "

It was the sound of strong men imitating the
starting puffs of an engine. The see -saw became a
sharp jerk. At each jerk came the gasp : " Hu !-Hu !
Hu !-Hu ! " Thump ! thump ! went the di'um. Trill,
shriekingly, went the pipe.

A man, with demoniac, roving eye, sprang into
the air. His face, contortive, and his eyes, wolfish,
were not well to gaze upon. He crawled round,
twitching his fingers. He seemed searching for prey,
so that he might tear its vitals.

He gripped a sword, waved it, capered like a
madman. He stuck the sharp blade against his
belly and bent forward. An old man jumped upon
his back and began shrieking.

" Hu !-Hu ! Hu !-Hu ! " The din was deafening.
There was frenzy in the air.

With a yell, a crisp-browed man seized a dagger.
He threw himself back. He gripped the skin at the

210 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

throttle of his neck, pushed the dagger through,
and then, with capering and grimace, he danced round.
He made horrible noises, as though he were being
strangled.

" Hu !-Hu ! Hu !-Hu ! "

A boy squatted, and began munching pieces of
jagged glass. At each gulp he pressed to the ground
in agony.

A short, thick-set fellow came forward with a
cactus leaf, green, the size of a flatfish, with spines
as long and as hard as needles. He ate as though
hungry.

Blood ran from belly, shoulders, throat nnd mouth.

" Hu !-Hu ! Ha !-Hu ! " It was an orgy of
fanaticism.

" For God's sake, Ali Hassan, stop this bloody
business ! " I cried.

I felt I would vomit. I staggered from the hall
out into the white sunshine.

And there was the old man, pulling down with
finger and thumb the raw red of his eyeless sockets,
and whining that Allah would reward those who were
charitable to the blind.

Ali Hassan knew every corner of this walled holy
city of the desert. The walls are so thick that a
road, along which a carriage might be driven, could
be made on them. The parapets, with their niches,
are domed ; the gates of the city, double, and with
a sharp turn, so that if the invader rammed the
first iron-studded, heavy-beamed gate, he would be
wedged in a tight passage, easily attacked from
above, whilst battering at the second gate.

THE HOLY CITY OF AFRICA 211

Kairouan stands on vast, featureless desert — as
far as eye can range nothing but desert — a white-
walled city with white houses and the domes of
twenty-three mosques and ninety zaouias showing
clear against the sky.

It was Okba-ben-Napy, Sidi Okba, who lies
buried in the desert near Biskra, in Algeria, who, in
the fiftieth year of the Mohammedan Hegira, came
from Arabia and conquered all North Africa to
Islamism. With a band of Arab tribesmen he
slashed the conquering sword from Egypt to Morocco,
and there he rode his horse into the waters of the
Atlantic and mourned his task was done.

He founded Kairouan. It was to be the centre of
African Islamism for ever. Seven pilgrimages to
Kairouan were to be equal to one to Mecca.

Now, when the French spread their hands over
Tunisia, there was capitulation, but the terms were
that no Christians should ever desecrate the mosques
b}'^ their presence. Kairouan, however, was stout-
hearted and resisted. So Kairouan had to be sub-
dued by the sword. To mark the subjection of the
holy city. Christians were to be allowed to enter her
mosques. At first they removed their boots and
wore slippers. But now that has fallen into abeyance.
The Christian can walk about the mosques in his
boots ; the one thing he must not do is to tread
upon the prayer mats.

It was not a happy day. The sirocco was blowing
— a hot but lifeless wind from the south. The air
was impregnated with sand, so that, whilst the light
was strong, there was no shadow. A strange, uncanny,
bright murkiness hung between the sun and the earth.

212 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

The bazaars (souks) were fantastically Oriental —
for Kairouan is too far away for the West to have
tampered with the distinctiveness of the Orient ; and
beyond the Bab (gate), which looks across the plains
Tunis-wards, is the Souk-el-Berrani (the Market of
the Strangers), where the black people from the
south dance, and where snake-charmers show their
skill.

With the play of Eastern gorgeousness about us,
we wended the zig-zag streets of the white city. A
push at a stunted and creaking doorway, and we
were in the zaouia of Sidi Abib-el-Ghariani. It was
cool to rest in the tiled passages where the poor,
when they have nowhere else to sleep, might come
and rest. The courtyard was decorated with many-
tinted tiles. Very crude would these tiles look if
placed in a European setting, but though the glazing
is bubbled and the colours rim, these subdued blues
and greens are effective where they are. Little
marble pillars — pillagings, I doubt not, from some
forgotten town of the Roman occupation — and moon
arches of alternative joists of white marble — you can
trace this Moorish design all across Africa into Spain
itself — and a little shaded gallery roofed in blue,
make the resting-place of Sidi Abib very peaceful.
He was a holy man, and though his direct descendants
have ended, his family still resides here, and one of
their number is the hereditary Governor of Kairouan.

The holy city was peaceful.

There was the business of the marts. But one
day is like unto another day, and so, with no worries
about the far-ofl outside world, the years turn, and
eternity is linked with eternity in days of small

THE HOLY CITY OF AFRICA 213

account. There are the prayers, five times a day, in
the white mosques, which, over their portals, have the
legend in ancient Arabic that there is no God but
one God, and Mohammed is his Prophet. There are
shady spots where the Arab lounges against marble
pillars, Graeco-Roman — also pilferings, I am sure,
from the departed Romans.

The souks are long passages, with arches black-
and white -washed — imitating the decorations of the
mosques. There is the quiet chatter of dignified
Arabs squatting before the stores. There is the
rancid smell of the cook-shops, and the sweet smell
from shops where honey-cakes are sold. I hear a
thud, and sniff the odour of coffee. In a small and
darkened chamber, and squatting, stripped to the
waist, and snuff-powdered with the dust, an Arab
is pounding coffee. His mortar is the beflowered
head of a Greek column. Near twenty centuries
ago it may have adorned the entrance to a Roman
temple — and now it is used for pounding coffee !

Arab women, black-shrouded, move silently about.
They do not veil like Moslem women elsewhere ;
the haik hangs over the head like a shawl, and it is
pulled across the face so that the passer may not see.
Just as in Spain you see decorations which have been
left by the Moors, so I think, in the graceful mantilla
worn by the Spanish lady in Seville, you see a distant
cousin of the haik which the ladies wear in the first-
founded Moorish city in North Africa.

Here is the Djama Tleta Biban, the Mosque of the
Three Doors — long, carved, aged, eaten doors with
Cufic scroll above. One of the old men, waiting to
die, was crouching with his chin on his knees, and his

214 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

lean fingers idly trickling dust. The hot wind was
blowing little heaps of dust to him. He muttered
a prayer. The day was a mixture of heat, dust,
languor and prayer. Into my heart crept a little
envy of the serene, unemotional Mussulman.

And here the Djama Kebir, the Great Mosque —
grandly simple. A Moor, in a long blue frock,
slithered his heelless slippers over the stones of the
courtyard, put large keys into antique locks, gave
a wrench, opened the way to the dusky interior, and
moved forward quickly, half turning the prayer-
mats so that my boots did not pollute them.

There is a tower of greyish brick, topped with
tiles, and the curve of a white dome, the point which
the pilgrim sees first when making the sacred journey,
and his eyes are strained across the sands for a
glimpse of the holy city. Round the courtyard run
cloisters, upheld by marble pillars — again all Roman,
and the spoil of some nigh-forgotten, half-buried
Roman city which flourished when the Romans were
turning North Africa into a colon}^ centuries before
the coming of the Arabs.

As solemn as a gloom-draped cathedral was the
maksoura, the prayer-chamber. All wooden windows
were closed, to shutter both heat and light ; but
light followed through the open doorway, and filtered
through stained glass far overhead. It looked low-
roofed, so enormous was it. It was all arches and
pillars, the arches Moorish, the pillars more relics of
Rome. Ali Hassan, who knows all things about
Kairouan, said there are seventeen naves of eight
arches each, and that the whole rests on two hundred
and ninety-six marble and porphyry pillars. These

THE HOLY CITY OF AFRICA 215

pillars are nearly forty feet high, but they do not
look it. The marbles are white and grey and green
and red. In a corner are three pillars, close together,
much polished shoulder-high, and indeed well worn.
" If you have rheumatism and you can press between
these pillars you are cured," said Ali Hassan, who
is a good Moslem and believed these things, though
he did not expect a Christian to do so.

All the pillars have the leafy, Greek acanthus
decoration, and one is twisted just as the leaves
would be twisted in a gust of wind — a little frolic
on the part of a sculptor dead and gone these twenty
hundred years.

The eye gradually pierced the dimness, and far
up was delicate tracery — in marble it appeared ;
but Ali Hassan said it was only stucco and modern.
Great ringed candelabra s^vimg from the roof ; each
had innumerable green glass cups, where lights flame
on feast nights. They reminded me of the green,
candle -holding glass cups much in evidence when
gardens at home are illuminated in the dusk.

In the walls are mosaics of lapis-lazuli. The
sacristy, with its cedar-wood screen of Moorish
netted pattern, is quaint but needs dusting. The
mihrab, the niche which points to Mecca, is a piece
of scooped marble with fantastic carvings. Close
by is the mimbar, a series of flanked steps ending in
a pulpit. How delicate, how exquisite is the cutting,
every panel different ! It is all fastened with little
brass grips. It is Indian in workmanship. Ali
Hassan told how it was got by a devout Persian.
He wrapped each piece carefully, and for two years
travelled across the salt plains of Persia, across

2i6 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

Arabia, across Egypt, across Barbary, and set it up
here in the holy city so that the truths of the Koran
might be expounded from it.

A dreamy, drowsy city is Kairouan. Its walls
were built for a much larger city than it is, and there
are broad, sand-swept stretches between the high
battlements and the white houses all huddled
together as though seeking the shade of each other.

In the centre of the city, a group of white -robed
men loll and smoke round the sacred well. El Barota,
the waters of which are icy chill, and venerated because
all Mussulmans believe they are in communication
with those of Zem-zem at Mecca.

Through doorways a peep of women throwing the
shuttle may be seen, for Kairouan is famous for its
carpets. I admired a carpet. So I sat down and
the seller brought me a little cup of thick, sugary
coffee. He haggled and I went away. But I was
called back, and we haggled again. At last I bought
the carpet.

Out by one of the massive gates, amid much
dodging of camels and stubborn bullocks.

Nothing but a sad sea of sand, broken by waves
of the villainous cactus. The heat has been harsh,
for though the cactus, like the camel, needs little
water, there has been no rain for many months, and
the cactus shrubs are withered and sapless, bent and
burnt.

Yonder is a recumbent and broken pillar of red
marble, the Blood-Red Column. ViTiat mammoth
men of the hazy past brought it here ? How did they
raise it ? Who fashioned it ? What did it signify ?
Neither you nor I could tell. Ali Hassan Imew.

THE HOLY CITY OF AFRICA 217

Long, long ago, there was a wicked woman who
raised a rebeUion. She marched to Kairouan intend-
ing to kill all therein ; but Allah turned her into
a pillar of red m-arble. Somebody once cut the
marble and a rush of blood was the consequence.
Now it is a spot of pilgrimage, and Moslems come
here to pray and light candles ; but for what
particular reason even Ali Hassan did not say.

Beyond the town, a bunch of white architecture,
was the Mosque of the Barber. Ali Hassan did not
like me calling it the Mosque of the Barber. Abou-
Zemaa-el-Beloui, buried here, was not the Prophet's
barber ; he was one of the Prophet's companions.
True he carried with him three hairs of Mohammed's
beard, one next his heart, one under his tongue, one
on his right arm ; but that did not make him a
barber.

It is a beautiful mosque, gloriously white. But
it was locked, and we must sit and make cigarettes
whilst the custodian was brought from the town.
He hurried up, breathless and apologetic.

It is a feast of pillars and shady courts and
arabesque carvings. Soft shades of green are in the
tile work. The pillars, just as usual, are Graeco-
Roman. The doorway is Italian Renaissance. The
tomb of the saint is a mass of green and red silk.
The carpets are old, and subdued in tone. A cluster
of green flags drape the head of the tomb. Around
it are hung ostrich-eggs, and gleaming glass balls of
blue and yellow, and little sacks of earth from Mecca.
A glint of sunshine beat upon the pilcd-up magni-
ficence, and a moth flitted about. " Arabs believe that
moths are the souls of the dead," said Ali Hassan.

2i8 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

In times far, far away, a fabulously rich Indian
prince came to Kairouan. He had many camels
laden with precious things. He went to a holy man
and asked what he should do with his wealth. " Sleep
to-night," said the holy man, " and in your dream
you will see the place where lies Abou-Zemaa-el-
Beloui, the friend of Mohammed. When day comes,
go there and dig, and you will find the body. Then,
with 3^our wealth, build the most beautiful mosque
in Africa." And it was all just so. In a corner, in
a red-ochreish box, lies the Indian prince who built
the mosque.

To the Mosque of the Swords, easily distinguished
by its six fluted domes. The Mosque of the Swords is
so-called because it is dedicated to Sidi Amor-Abada,
a marabout, the last professional holy man in Kairouan.
He had the gift of prophecy, and he made swords
and pipes and covered them with prophetic inscrip-
tions. The door is salmon-coloured, and is encrusted
with ironwork, representing bunches of grapes, and to
these are fastened tufts of rags, showing that the faithful
have been here and made some request to the spirit
of the saint. Alas ! the door was locked, and there
was no response to our beating. The guardian was
at a coffee-house not far off, and he was brought —
a huge, negro-faced, grey-bearded, lymphatic old
fellow, who jangled enormous keys.

The interior of the mosque was dingy. There
was the tomb, and over it fanned orange and green
banners. There was a heavy iron sword, and on it
an Arabic inscription. I could hardly lift the sword.
A great slab hung over the coffin, and on it were
predictions by Sidi Amor-Abada. By the walls

THE HOLY CITY OF AFRICA 219

reared other great slabs with other predictions. He
foretold the occupation of Tunisia by the French.
In one corner, a maze of much-painted fretwork, was
the tomb of the favourite slave of Sidi Amor-Abada,
and in another corner, just a slab of white marble,
was the burial-place of his daughter. Cannon balls
and old cannon lay about.

Sidi Amor-Abada was very rich. The Bey of Tunis
^vanted money. He took all that Sidi Amor-Abada
had. But Sidi Amor-Abada told that the Bey would
die within three years. He did. Now, amongst the
wonderful things narrated to me by Ali Hassan was
that Sidi Amor-Abada told the Bey to dig in a salt
marsh north of Tunis and he would find four anchors.
They were found, and they were brought to Kairouan.
I saw them ; they were each fifteen feet long and
tremendously weighty and cumbersome. As long
as they lay at Kairouan the city would be protected
from all evil. " Time will prove," said Ali Hassan
quietly.

I liked the stories of Ali Hassan as we walked the
lanes of Kairouan. The heat was oppressive, and
the hot sirocco dust whirled in clouds. There was
the torment of mp-iads of flies.

" Ah ! " said Ali Hassan, " they were ten times
worse last week ; but Allah sent the sirocco and
that has killed most of them."

Night was falling when I left Kairouan and
travelled across the desert. Night came with ruddy
anger. I looked back and saw the white city of
mosques soften into grey. The hot wind never ceased
beating me on the cheek.

CHAPTER XIX

THINGS ABOUT TUNISIA

In colloquial language it may be said that the French
have Tunisia " in their pockets."

The French went to Tunisia to secure law and
order because the country was in turmoil, the ad-
ministration corrupt, and Europeans ill-treated. After
whipping the evil-doers, they compelled the Bey of
Tunis to accept a French Protectorate. The Bey
growled, writhed, and agreed. Technically, the
French will leave Tunisia whenever, in the minds of
the French, Tunisia is qualified to look after itself.
That state of mind will never be reached. France
is in Tunisia to stay.

The Bey is a puppet. He lives in a radiant
palace at Marsa, and receives something approaching
£40,000 a year. All official acts are done in his name,
because he signs the documents, and he signs what-
ever documents are placed before him by the French
Governor-General. On certain days of the month
he drives into Tunis and holds a pantomime Court.
The Tunisians regard him as their king, and he is
profuse in the distribution of cheap orders. But he
has less power than the youngest secretary in the
bureau of administration.

The French rule Tunisia with an iron hand — and
rule it well. They have improved the finances of the

220

THINGS ABOUT TUNISIA 221

country. The officials are capable men. But there
are very few Frenchmen in Tunisia besides the
officials, and there are not likely to be. Tunisia
cannot become a colony in the sense that it will
be developed by colonists from France. Italians and
Maltese are the people who are settling and are
getting the benefit of French over-lordship.

Before the French came, the finances of the
country — affected with the rotten paralysis which
creeps over everything Turkish, and the Beys have
been Turks and not Arabs — were in a disastrous
condition. The French have done well in putting
them straight ; but at a big price.

The French are hated. There need be no mistake
about that. In the southern regions there is seething
revolt amongst the kaids, the little lords of the
country, who find their power dwindling, who have
their pride pricked by being compelled to obey the
orders of French subalterns, who were squeezed by
the Beys in the old times, but recouped themselves
in the truly Oriental fashion by squeezing everybody
else within their range. The native peasantry are
full of discontent. True, the kaids ill-treated them,
and judgment went to the stronger, and they suffered
from corruption and were corrupt. It was, however,
all in accordance with immemorial practice, and
they accepted it as they accept thirst and the desert,
as a perfectly natural condition of things. But these
French — why, they impose a poll-tax of twenty
francs on every person ! That, to a Tunisian peasant,
represents nearly three months' earnings. Every
peasant must give three days' work each year in
mending the roads in his district. Everything is

222 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

taxed, even the little garden in which the Tunisian
takes his siesta in the middle of the day. Of course,
the French can point to justice in administration,
fair dealing, the building of railways and the con-
struction of good roads. These are things which
are satisfying to the European, but they are not
at all satisfying to the Tunisian who has to bear the
burden, and whose back nearly cracks with the load.
If given his choice, he would have a return to the
bad old ways.

Quite a little country is Tunisia, and full of interest.
The natives do not move about much, and in different
parts they present different characteristics. On the
north coast they are often fair in complexion, as fair
as Italians. Then, on the plains, is the Arab type,
Semitic, with refined lips and dreamy eyes. South,
are Numidians, dark and coarse of feature. Amongst
the hills are swarthy folk, partly negro, and partly
Moor. In the bigger towns the native breed is usually
bastard in race.

The visitor, when he arrives, has his ears filled
with stories of danger in travelling among the natives.
I experienced none of the danger. Sometimes the
peasants live in tents, but mostly they dwell in
the gurbi, which is a sort of rush-made shed,
not quite a tent and not quite a house, but some-
thing between the two. That they are sluggish,
without ambition, but wander through life content
with enough for the day — except when the tax
collector comes along — goes without saying. The
costumes are more picturesque than inviting, gaudy
cottons fastened with barbaric jewellery and worn
until they fall off in tatters. In the oases — and

THINGS ABOUT TUNISIA 223

Tunisia is blessed with the quahty of the curate's
egg, " it is excellent in parts "• — garments of brown
wool are usual. Here the people have ramshackle,
drunken, stone houses. Most people work in the
palm groves and eat dog-flesh ; in some of the towns
all the women weave carpets, whilst in others they all
make blankets.

Down south are the cave-dwellers. It is rather
strange that so few people visit the region of the
troglodytes, especially as they can be reached by
motor-car.

Wliole villages consist of nothing but holes cut
in the face of the rocks, and these are approached
by jutting stones, which serve as ladders. At
Medenine are houses built after the manner of the
cave-dwellers, houses built on houses, like great
drain-pipes, made of stone with rounded tops, with
a low entrance left at one end. The houses are
really cells, and entrance can only be obtained
by clambering up the outer wall by means of a rope
or projecting stones or pieces of wood. Many of
these buildings are hundreds of years old. At
Medenine some twenty of them are set back to back,
which are ceasing to be used as habitations but utilised
as granaries. At places like Matmata and Zmerten,
the natives have abandoned the hills, into which
they scooped to make dwelling-places, for the humpy
ground at the foot of the hills. They have dwelling-
places, called ghars, the most curious of houses.
They go to a big mound where the soil is firm, and
on the top proceed to dig a kind of well about twenty
feet deep and twenty feet across. The bottom is
flattened and is a sort of open courtyard. In the

224 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

walls are cut living rooms and store-houses, some
on the bottom level, some higher up the aperture,
and reached by ropes. The floor of the open yard
is generally on a level with the bottom of the mound,
and a passage is cut through to the outside. That
is a quaint kind of house. But it is not a prehistoric
cave-dwelling. The ghar is a comparatively modern
invention, following upon the abandonment of the
real cave-dwelling, when the natives felt they could
live on the low ground and be free from attack by
warrior tribes, and be able to follow their agricultural
pursuits in the valleys. The mound-houses are
roomy and comfortable, and the beds and seats are
fashioned from the earth itself. One of these villages,
at the shortest of distances, can scarcely be recognised ;
it looks like a hillocky bit of country.

On the coast — as at Sfax, where there are more
green turbans than white — there is a jumble of
tongues. Esperanto is nothing of a language to
Sabir. As far as can be made out, it is composed of
five Spanish, four Italian and six French words, and
so Sabir becomes " the idiom common to the Arab
who thinks he can talk French and the Frenchman
who imagines he is talking Arabic."

Constantly in my wanderings I met the WTiite
Fathers, who owe their origin to Cardinal Lavigerie.
La^ngerie, " the apostle of Africa in the nineteenth
century," has been compared with Xavier, the
apostle of the Indies. When Bishop of Nancy, he
was offered, through Marshal MacMahon, then
Governor-General of Algeria, the Archbishopric of
Algiers. So, some half a century ago, he accepted.
Cholera and famine then threatened the country.

THINGS ABOUT TUNISIA 225

and he at once began to provide for the needs of the
natives, estabhshing orphanages, and two Christian
villages where native boys and girls were trained, and
where medical attendance was provided for sufferers.
He was called marabout by the grateful and
astonished Arabs. Then came the foundation of the
Peres Blancs, dressed like natives and turned into
Africans for the love of Africa. These devoted
missionaries penetrated right through the desert to
equatorial xVfrica, and suffered terribly from hardship
and persecution at the hands of the savage tribes of
the interior. As, however, they could not reach and
preach to the Arab women, Lavigerie also started
a sisterhood, Les Soeurs Blanches. ^Vllen Tunis was
occupied, he organised Catholicism there, and restored
Carthage as an archiepiscopal see, holding this title
as well as that of Algiers. He was made a cardinal
in 1882, and in his later years carried on a big cam-
paign against African slavery.

These A^liite Fathers lead humble, self-sacrificing
lives, and though they may not do much in the
direction of actual conversion from Mohammedanism
to Christianity, the example they set has a good
effect. Politically the IMoslem abhors the Christian,
but individually I found the Moslem showed a greater
tolerance towards the Christian faith than the ordinary
Christian shows towards the teachings of Mohammed.

The further one got away from the town Moors,
and mixed amongst the nomads, or the pastoralists,
or the men attending to the date-palms, the more
delightfully primitive the natives were found to be.
Dirty in many respects, their love for water is almost
a passion. Without it, the desert is a grave ; with
I

226 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

it, it is like standing at the gates of Paradise. Good
Moslems build fountains that they may receive the
benedictions of the thirsty. But whilst the European
prefers to slake the dryness of his mouth at a running
stream, the Tunisian prefers still water. From a pool,
even though it be covered with green slime, he suffers
no ill effects, whereas, he tells you, running water
has qualities which give him internal pains.

All down the coast, from Tunis to Sousse — and
one of the most exquisite sights in the world is modern
white Carthage, basking in the sun across the bay — a
little railway runs, very dilatory, but revealing a
countryside glorious with flowers ; indeed, it is in
this district that most of the blooms are grown for the
purposes of manufacture into perfume, rich gold,
radiant blues, heavy reds, and softest violets. Sousse
and Sfax are delightful towns, clean and Eastern,
and inviting the traveller to play the lazy man, for
things are taken easily and life slides along like a
drowsy, sunny afternoon. And you can get to
Gafsa by train, right in the heart of the oasis country
— date trees and pomegranates everywhere — and
there the Ai'abs do not veil their women ; except in
the case of those who can be described as " the
quality."

When the wind blows, and the sky is yellow with
sand, and your eyes are pained, and your mouth
full of grit, it is uncomfortable. But it is well to
forget these things, and remember the sight of the
trees when you have been travelling over the arid,
featureless waste of land. A considerable date trade
with Europe is growing up. Fortunes are being
made out of alfa grass. The central highlands have

THINGS ABOUT TUNISIA 227

been well explored, with the consequence that zinc
mines have been sunk, and concessions for phosphates
secured.

Thus, throughout Tunisia we find some of the
feverish spirit of modern commerce alongside the
medieval methods of manufacture of the natives.
As, in all the bazaars, the make and sale of particular
articles are kept to certain streets, so all the trades
are combined in guilds. Hard is the lot of a Tunisian
who would break away from the traditional way of
producing an article. The saddler is the higher-
grade artisan, and very gorgeous, with gold and
turquoises, are the saddles of the kaids. A Tunisian
with a valuable horse and highly ornamented saddle
is as sure of salaams as the Englishman who goes
touring with a £2,000 automobile.

Though there are business-minded Frenchmen
energetically taking advantage of the natural resources
of Algeria, that cannot be said in regard to Tunisia.
The colonists, as I have said, are Italians. An easy
way I found in vogue was to purchase a stretch of
fertile land, and let it out to the natives, not for
rent but for a share of the produce. And it is not
the native who gets the larger share. Spurred by
the success in Algeria, attempts have been made
to stimulate vine culture. The result has not been
promising. But much is done with the growing of
olives ; the oil is good, and there is the prospect of
a really good trade. The fishing areas along the
coast have nearly all been conceded by the French
Government to companies, and a great traffic with
France exists. The fish is of better quality than
that on the French coast.

228 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

I have mentioned the colonising which is done
by Itahans. But something must be said about the
Jews, for here — as indeed along the whole stretch
of northern Africa, from Tunis to Tangier — the Jew
holds the most important place in the commerce of
the land. The eagle nose associated with the Semitic
race is not much in evidence.

Tunisian Jews by no means favour the French
occupation ; there are certain legal restraints upon
their methods of money-making which they do not
appreciate. But there is certainly this to be said
for the Tunisian Jew— and it is a feature which pro-
vides a distinction, apart from the characteristics of
the race — he is a genuine worker. Apart from
saddlery, which is retained amongst the Moors, there
are few of the skilled trades which are not dominated
by the Jews. Of course, they have monopolised the
tailoring business. But they are good blacksmiths,
and gangs of them are to be found journeying in the
track of camel caravans seeking work in their line.
In Tunis the Jewish children literally gobble education.
The Jew has no foolish prejudices. He willingly
sends his children to a Roman Catholic school if
there he gets an education superior to that which he
can obtain from the rabbis. He picks up languages
as readily as he breeds fleas. If ever real, active
effort comes in Tunisia to throw off the French yoke,
the Jews will supply the brains of the movement.

Now, in Tunis, it is impossible to tell a Jew from
the usual mixed-bred Tunisian, except, maybe, for a
certain quickness in the eye. In the old days Jews were
obliged to dress differently from Arabs ; they had to
carry little bells to signal their approach ; they were

THINGS ABOUT TUNISIA 229

obliged to walk bare-footed past the mosques, and
they were forbidden ever to ride a horse, or even a
donkey in some places. Of course, the Ai'abs hate
them. But the Jews patronise the big cafes, and
ride in motor-cars, and the Arabs are their servants.
The greatest insult you can offer an Arab is to call
him a Jew.

The Jews are subject to their own Hebraic laws,
and pay taxes specially for the aiding of poor Jews
The singular thing is that the Jewish laws are ad-
ministered by Mohammedans. Further, whilst the
Jews obey the laws of their race, they are subject to
the laws of the Arabs. So, although the Jew squeezes,
he is also squeezed in turn, I have met Christians
in Tunis who are quite sure the Jews kidnap Gentile
children, kill them, and drink their blood.

It is natural that the Jews, settled for centuries
in North Africa, should have picked up some of the
religious ceremonials of the Mohammedans. They
make pilgrimages to Moslem shrines, venerate saints,
and burn candles in the zouia of Sidi Marez, who was
the first Mohammedan to permit Jews to live in
Tunis. Also, the Tunisian Jews believe in polygamy,
and this is practised if the first wife is not prodigal
in progeny. But childless widows have the right
to claim to be married to their brother-in-law, even
though he be married already, and if he refuses — well,
they have the satisfaction of hauling him before the
Hebrew tribunal, pulling off his shoes and spitting on
them, which must be a great satisfaction.

Every Jewish woman must know some industry,
no matter how wealthy she be. She is a subservient
creature. She and she only must prepare her hus-

230 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

band's bed, and when he eats she must stand by
his side and wait upon him. Brides are fattened
before marriage exactly in the same way as Moslem
girls.

The European Jew is a born musician. But the
Tunisian Jew has lived so long amongst Moham-
medans that he has lost his ear for European music,
and the European has no appreciation for the fear-
some discords which are counted as music amongst
the Jews who live in the land of the Bey.

CHAPTER XX

THE FOREIGN LEGION

La Legion Etrangere — that is one of the most interest-
ing things in the world. It is mainly composed of
foreigners who, for dark reasons of their own, leave
their native country and hide their identity amid the
sands of French Africa — though now Frenchmen,
having served as conscripts at home, can volunteer
as soldiers in the French Legion.

I saw many of them at Sidi-Bel-Abbis — ^the head-
quarters— ^at Saida, at Ain-Sefra, and away south at
Figuig, where a French wedge is being driven into
Morocco. There are Frenchmen and Alsatians and
Lorrainers, Germans, Belgians, Swiss, Italians,
Austrians, Dutchmen, Spaniards, Russians, Danes,
Greeks, Portuguese, Servians, Roumanians, Turks,
and I heard of twenty-nine Americans and twenty-
one Englishmen.

Fine, lithe, dare-devil fellows — but not many

Frenchmen. They are in slouching cotton garments,

and they are not young soldiers. Listen, and though

French is spoken, it is often with the accent of the

foreigner. Here is a group, and they are talking

German. A couple of dark-skinned men go by and

their tongue is Spanish. Ah ! there is the musical

lilt of Italian.

Who arc these men ? Many — most — are from the

231

232 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, lost to France in
the war with Germany forty years ago. Young
fellows, German subjects, speaking the German
tongue, but their hearts warm to France, the land
of their fathers, escape service as German soldiers
by joining the Foreign Legion of France. No
questions are asked ; they are enrolled by whatever
name they choose to give.

Rich young Austrians and spendthrift Russians,
ruined and disgraced at Monte Carlo, and failing to
blow their brains out, disappear. Their friends never
hear of them again. You find them in the Foreign
Legion. They give themselves French names, though
their French is broken. ^Vhen the roll-call is made
they stand silent ; then, with quick gesture they
respond. The French ofhcer smiles, but asks no
questions.

Young Englishmen, young Americans, who have
shamed their families and have thought it advisable
to clear out, hide themselves under French names
in the Foreign Legion. They are taciturn men, with
life stories not to be told. And no questions are
ever asked.

I recall one morning at Saida. I was weary with
much travelling. It was hot, and there was not
a breath of air. Saida is an unattractive town,
with an indifferent hotel and an ugly cathedral.
The civilians are Spaniards. But everywhere were
soldiers of the Foreign Legion, marching quickly,
and often there was the lilt of a bugle.

Before the town gates I saw a clump of cypress-
trees. They suggested coolness. Soon I was in the
cemetery, gaudy and bizarre, as the burial-places

THE FOREIGN LEGION 233

of Latins always are ; tawdry chapels with cheap
tablets, and cheaper oleogrnphs, and bunches of paper
rosettes, and even photographs of the dead taken
after death.

A fat gravedigger, with sweat bespangling his
brow, dnected me to the spot I was searching for —
the last sleeping-place of soldiers of the Foreign
Legion. It was a stretch of brown earth. There
were no marble monuments. There were long rows
of little wooden crosses, made of laths and painted
black. But many of them were broken, and the names
which had once been painted on them in white had
been washed off by the rains or burnt off by the sun.

A forlorn, weed-strewn corner of the cemetery —
very quiet that hot morning. That patch of earth
was a volume of mystery. Blackguards lay there,
men who had betrayed women, brave men, men
who had panted for adventure and sought it in
Algeria and now had their last camp at Saida,
men of noble lineage who had shamed their
families. How many mothers in distant lands,
thinking of their wild boys who had gone away and
never returned, knew they were under the soil at
Saida ?

The fat gravedigger was agreeing that it was
sad so many names were obliterated from the crude,
black, wooden crosses, when up the cypress avenue
came a French captain, in tight-fitting, gold-buttoned
jacket, and wide, wine-coloured trousers. A frail,
sharp-featured, quick-eyed young officer, with much
sadness in his face. His hair was grey. He had come
from the colonel, and his instructions were — evidently
there had been some misunderstanding — that no
1*

234 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

civilians were to be buried in this quarter of the
cemetery, but that all the soldiers were to lie together.
The gravedigger gave a half bow. And the graves
were to be tidied up, and all the weeds removed.
The gravedigger nodded. The crosses were to be
repaired, and all the names restored. The grave-
digger shrugged his fat shoulders ; he could mend
the crosses, but how was he to know what name was
to be put on each ? The captain said he would
endeavour to find out if there was any record. How-
ever, the colonel wanted the graves of the soldiers
better cared for ; they were a disgrace.

It was a sultry morning, and the sun blazed on
the mounds of earth, and in the shade of the cypress-
trees sweet-throated birds were singing blithely.

*

Sidi-Bel-Abbis, the headquarters of the Foreign
Legion. A town with a history reaching back to
the Roman occupation, but now a French military
town, heavily fortified, and protected with formidable
walls. I found it a clean and pleasant town, with
long and cool avenues of plane and silver beech
trees, and on the trunk of each tree an advertisement
of some French liqueur. There were French cafes,
and beneath the red and yellow awnings officers,
sun-baked, dusty, and in riding-boots, were sipping
beverages and playing cards, and chatting and reading
newspapers, and constantly returning the salutes of
soldiers passing by.

The barracks were big and square-built and white.

It was the blaze of the day, and along the dusty
road came swinging the troops. They were in white,
with a thick blue wool cummerbund about them ;

THE FOREIGN LEGION 335

they had small caps ; short leggings encased their
ankles ; on each man's back was his full kit, and the
rifles were carried anyhow on the shoulders. Young
men and middle-aged men, they were all firm-chinned
men. They were smothered in dust, and the sweat
trickled down their cheeks. Constant work, and,
when there is no work, marching — prolonged marching
under Africa's sun — marching the men till they are
dog-tired, making them always carry their heavy
kit. That is the way the French keep the Foreign
Legion in order.

In the public gardens, luxurious with tall trees,
with emblematic figures in marble at intervals, and
the splash of little waterfalls frequent, I heard music.
It was the band of the Foreign Legion at practice, the
second finest band belonging to France, coming next
to that of the Garde Republicaine. Under a bower of
trees sat the men, in neglige attire, without caps, in
shirt-sleeves, anyhow ; it was too hot for ceremony.
The bandmaster, a short, energetic man, perspiring
much, was starting them and checking them, making
them go over passages again, very piano in one part,
vigorously fortissimo in another, making them put
colour and shade and feeling into the music. ^Vllat-
ever evil reputation the Foreign Legion has in France,
these players — Poles, Austrians, Italians, Spaniards
and Germans — struck me as men with refined
countenances.

On the seats in the paths were soldiers reading
or playing chess or smoking. At some distance were
groups of Arabs.

Daredevilry is the thing that mostly attracts men

236 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

to the Foreign Legion. It owes its origin to the
large number oi' foreign exiles who swarmed into
France after 1830, the roughest and most cosmo-
politan of crowds. Every trade and profession is
represented. Some of the bravest things ever done
in war have been done by men of the Foreign Legion.
They are given the hard nuts in campaigns to crack ;
they are worked as no other soldiers on earth are
worked ; the pay they receive is paltry. Yet, Avithal,
they are a good-natured lot. They are tough, and
they fight recklessly.

IMarching to death — that is the lot of many of
them. Here is a story which was told down at the
back of Morocco in 1910 : A mounted company of
the First Regiment was out. According to custom,
there was one mule for two men, who used the beast
alternately for a stage of three miles. The third
day came ; the heat was torrid ; men were parched.
A young Alsatian, named Weisrock, disobeyed the
instructions of his officer that no water should be
taken from a particular well. But Weisrock was
thirsty, and he w^ould run the risk of fever or poison
rather than fail to quench his thirst. The officer
was indignant. As punishment, Weisrock was ordered
to walk the next stage and not ride. He was very
footsore and he limped. Because he lagged, he was
ordered to walk another stage, three in succession.
Friends offered their mules to him, but this was
prohibited. He struggled painfully to keep up with
the column. A kind-hearted corporal suggested
Weisrock should hold on to his mule's tail and so
get help. This was detected ; Weisrock was reviled ;
he must march alone. Weisrock staggered and fell.

THE FOREIGN LEGION 237

His gun was taken away from him, and he was left
alone, as it was thought he was shamming. Toward
night, as Weisrock did not come into camp, mates
were sent to look for him. They found human bones
to which bits of flesh were attached. Weisrock had
fallen a prey to jackals and hyenas.

Wlien a man joins the Foreign Legion he does so
for five years, and his pay is five centimes (one half-
penny English money) a day. I remember seeing a
crowd of them come aboard the steamer in which I
was travelling from ]\Iarseilles to Algiers. They were
grimy, unshaven, and they all looked as though
wearing clothes which had been intended for some-
body else. They were old clothes. I am ignorant
whether the French nation provides its warriors
with boots ; if so, the footgear of these soldiers had
been provided from a rummage collection — there
were top-boots and low shoes, hobnailed boots and
patent leather boots, brown buttoned boots and
slippers.

With their soiled, red, peaked caps, and ill-fitting
blue jackets, and much-too-long red trousers, the
soldiers lined up on the wharf at Marseilles. Names
were shouted, and as each man moved to the gang-
way a horsecloth sort of blanket was thrown to
him.

The men lounged for'ard amongst baggage and
ropes and what looked like the paraphernalia of a
circus. There was a throng of deck passengers
squatting in the corners, and the French soldiers
travelled " deck " with the rest. They slept on deck,
with their brown rugs wrapped about them. As
they covered their heads and sprawled anyhow.

238 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

they looked like a heap of badly filled sacks of
potatoes.

They were good-hearted fellows. The Tommy-
soldier in every country is a good sort, and I know
him well and have lived with him — the Russian,
Turkish, German, American, Indian, Japanese,
Italian. The Tommy, wherever found, is a bit of a
humorist and something of a philosopher. I spent
a good deal of my time amongst these French
soldiers.

About four o'clock in the afternoon men appeared
with slop-basins, tin washbowls, nameless utensils, in
which were floating messes of flesh, haricot beans and
grease. No spoons, no knives, no forks. With their
pocket-knives, the men sawed chunks off loaves, dived
for pieces of meat and ate anyhow. Not a word of
grumbling. They joked about the odour of the
meat. They called it fanciful names. Somebody
unearthed a lot of tin plates ; the greasy haricot
mess was tilted partly into the plates and partly on
deck ; the men supped a little, and then with one
accord they marched to the side of the ship and tossed
their food into the sea.

A garden watering-can of red wine appeared.
One man had a tin cup in his knapsack, and this
passed round. "Ah! champagne," muttered Tommy
with a leer, and then twisted his face as though
gulping ink. Yet Jean Jacques was happy — not
because he liked the provender, but simply because
he had the amiability which marks the Tommy of
all lands.

Most of these men had sold their civilian clothes
in Marseifles. Harpies prey upon them, and maybe

THE FOREIGN LEGION 239

give five sous for a pair of trousers. But glory in
Algeria, the vision of a splendid career is before
their eyes, and they are giving the good-bye to Europe.
Are they to starve on the yellow sands across the
Mediterranean— well, what matters it ? They have
heard the stories of gallant deeds. There was a
young German who won the cross of the Legion of
Honour on the field of battle, and then died— and
there is a belief he was a prince of the Royal House
of Prussia.

Work ! That is the beginning and the end of
the legionary's career. The old men knock the
younger into shape. The barracks are spotless. Kits
are kept in such order that everything can be found
in the dark. Offend against discipline, and the
soldier has as pvuiishment to march for three hours a
day round the barrack yard, and in his knapsack he
carries stones weighing eighty pounds. That takes
the spirit out of him.

Have you heard of the " Legion's breakfast " —
two hours of exercise at the double, and the only
pauses allowed just equal to the time it takes to
smoke a cigarette ? Two hours more in polishing
accoutrements.

Then march — march as you please — but march.
Eight hours a day at the pace of four miles an hour —
that keeps the men fit. They are not in light, but
in heavy marching order : thick-soled boots, leather
gaiters, heavy blue coat, cummerbund of thick wool,
and red kepi, rifle and bayonet, from two to four
hundred rounds of ammunition, a heavy kit, two
complete uniforms, tent canvas, poles, a blanket,
fuel for the bivouac, canteen with food, every necessity

240 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

for a man to camp out for three days, and weighing
in all about a hundred pounds.

So the men become wiry and hard, and are inured
to roughing it. It is all terribly hard at first. But
in time comes a pride that they can do so much.
In the essentials, discipline is severe, almost cruel ;
but in other matters they are allowed to do as they
like. Esprit de corps is encouraged, and it exists.
There is plenty of rifle practice, and the men are good
shots. The officers are ardent. I have met fine
officers in other parts of the world, but I have never
met officers who were all so actuated by a fiery,
severe sense of duty as the officers in the Foreign
Legion.

Fine roads in Algeria. Frenchmen are naturally
proud of their skill in road-making. In no new part
of the British Empire, and in no part of the newly
developed United States, are there roads anything
like the roads the French have built through desert
tracts of Algeria. They are level, well-metalled,
well cared-for. Three quarters of these roads have
been built by legionaries, I remember travelling in
the Djurdjura Mountains in the north, from Tizi-
Ouzou to Fort National, some of it through extremely
rocky country, and the road rising two thousand
three hundred feet between the two towns, a distance
of seventeen miles. Half a century ago the French
soldiers built this road in twenty days. Folk in other
countries, who do not know what the industry of
the French people is, may have some difficulty in
appreciating what fine roads the French have built
in Algeria. To-day, far south, on the blistering
desert, the legionaries are building roads for a wage a

THE FOREIGN LEGION 241

Chinese coolie would scorn. If there are houses to
be built, the legionaries can build them — and they
will produce the architects to design them. If
engineering difficulties arise, there are always
legionaries who have been engineers. If the Army
doctor falls sick, there is always a man in the ranks
who has been a doctor. If there is dirty work to be
done, the cleaning of a cesspool, for instance, the men
of the Legion are employed. Working and marching
and fighting, with never a halt, that is the life of
soldiers in the Foreign Legion — -and the pay is one
halfpenny a day !

An excellent business investment for France !
That is empire-building on the cheap. The scent of
glory, the primitive fighting instincts of men, the door
of escape from dishonour and tragedy, the wild life
— oh, the Foreign Legion is never short of men !

Riff-raff of the Avorld, the scum of society, young
men hungry for adventure, men of good family
hiding under fictitious names — who knows anything
about the life of the soldier in the Foreign Legion ?
It is romantic — did not Ouida write about it in her
novels ? — but what about the body-aching punish-
ments, the ceaseless toil, the interminable marches —
marches which produce madness, and the madness
leads to inurder and suicide and desertion — a
desertion which means death on the hot sands — or a
dash into the hills of Morocco? And in Morocco
what happens ? Are they shot by the Moors ? Do
they become Mohammedans ? Some undoubtedly
join the Moorish army. Others, their courage
cooled, starving, wan, weakened in body, trail back
and take their punishment — awful punishment.

242 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

Yet it is a life which attracts. All brave men,
they are the men who are engaged in what French
politicians call the " peaceful penetration " of Africa.
But there is fighting — which the European news-
papers hear of rarely. The legionnaire loves fighting,
and he will die rather than retreat. Eleven times
in battle has the Legion refused to obey orders when
the trumpet has sounded the retreat.

CHAPTER XXI

AT THE BACK OF MOROCCO

It meant a journey of several hundred miles across
desert waste, the sand dunes blown up like great
waves and held at the point they break, and then
through rocky ravines, with the distraught rock
burnt brick-red, before the palm-trees of Figuig, fed
by waters from the mountains of Morocco, came into
sight.

I am at Beni-Ounif, a splay-footed, blistering,
dustswept militar}'' post, set up by the French far
south and right at the back of Morocco. The build-
ings are fortified. Even the huge-yarded caravan-
serie of mud-walls called the Grand Hotel du Sahara,
has high, rounded towers and loopholes through
which to shoot.

And here, in a semi-darkened room, for coolness'
sake, come French officers to eat. They are not the
gay, garrulous dandies of the boulevards, the pantalons
rouges, but thick-set men in Ivhaki. Most are bearded.
Their foreheads are lined, and their yellow, sun-
shrivelled cheeks are seared. Their work is hard
and dangerous, and Paris knows little about it.

They are strangely silent, with the fixed faces
of men who live alone with their thoughts — the faces
of men who have spent long years on the desert, and
have little to look upon but an eternity of eye -aching

243

244 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

sand and an eternity of sky with the bkie bleached
out of it.

France sends her Foreign Legion to Africa. The
men have no friends ; they are brave to recklessness.
Wlien they die, there are none to spill tears for them.
And they are down here, at the back of Morocco,
where there is no boundary between Morocco and
Algeria.

Other troops there are — black ! They come from
Senegal, lithe -limbed and as dusk as night, and their
lips protrude and arc pursy, like pieces of putrid
meat, and the whites of their eyes are as yellow as
coffee-stains. They have their wives and their
children with them : the children, little balls of
black, impish stark-nakedness sprawling in the hot
sands : the wives — with cropped, woolly hair shaven
in streaks from temple straight back to neck — wear-
mg flaming loin-cloths, but otherwise naked. Their
skin is a sort of velvet ebony ; their milkless breasts
sag for a foot. They squat outside the long line of
mud-huts which the French have built, and they cook
for their husbands, who, khaki-clad, red-fezzed but
bare-footed, are being taught war out on the oven
of the desert.

Foreigners from God knows where, and black
fellows from Senegal — these are tlie human weapons
France intends to push through the back door of
Morocco when France thinks the hour has come to
grip the kingdom of the Moors.

Wild warriors are these hillmen of south-east
Morocco. It will need daring men to face them,
men who will do anything, stick at nothing. German
jealousy is the cause of the Moors refusing railways

AT THE BACK OF MOROCCO 245

in their land. But down in this eastern region, where
boundaries are ill-defined or non-existent, the French
are quietly putting down rails. The Moors protest,
but retire. Then another fifty miles of rails are put
down. So the French, with these military railway
spurs being driven west and south, are extending
their power in Morocco.

Figuig is the danger-point of the whole business.
It is not a town but a district, an oasis of date-palms
in which are seven small towns. Diplomatically it
belongs to Morocco. It has never been ceded. The
Pasha, representative of the Sultan, lives at El-Ouda-
ghir, and he has soldiers. But because, seven years
ago, some Frenchmen were fired upon, France said,
" We will manage this district."

The French authorities were not zealous that I
should go into the Figuig region. It was unsettled,
and for a generation the oasis had been a refuge for
all Arabs who had been fighting against French
influence in the south. The absence of the French
was interpreted by the Moors as fear of the people of
Figuig. It required a few cannon beating upon the
mud ramparts of Zenaga to change their opinion.
But they are sullen.

As I was anxious, Col. Drogue, commandant of
the Bureau Arabe at Algiers, courteously gave
instructions that I should be assisted. Accordingly,
on the morning my companion and I got into the
saddle at Beni-Ounif, we were accompanied by two
armed Arabs, who were ornamental and graceful in
their long burnouses of blue and waving head-dresses
of white, and who, with rifles across their knees, put
their horses through a fantasia of capering. Our

246 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

own horses were good. We had ornate Moorish
saddles, high-pommelled, and with backs like dining-
room chairs, while the stirrups resembled miniature
coal-scuttles of steel. It was picturesque — but I am
going to say no more about those Moorish saddles.

Across the plains, through a gulch, and there
broke the oasis — thousands of feathery palms —
the green very restful to the eye. Practically the
whole oasis is ribbed with ramparts, mud-built, with
round towers every few hundred yards. But gaps
have been knocked through the ramparts. Inside
are the date-palms, all fenced with mud and rubble
walls, for the trees belong to private Moorish owners.
The walls are so high it was hard at times to look
over them from the saddle. In places the water
was cisterned, and ran off in channels, nourishing the
palm gardens in turn. The date harvest was over
and only occasionally were clusters of fruit, like old
amber, seen in the trees.

Not a breath of air, not a sound, as we rode those
lofty, narrow, mud-gnt ways, with the fretted green
fronds overhead. It was a maze of passages, and
my friend and I made jokes about the Hampton
Court maze being a fool to it. Very narrow ; so
narrow it was impossible to turn a horse in it. We
rode single file — first an Arab with his rifle handy,
then myself, next my friend, and then the second
Ai'ab, also with his rifle across his knees. Not a
soul did we see.

Like the quick shifting of a scene, we were before
the town of El Abid, and the hoofs of our horses
were making clatter over the cobbles at the zig-zag
town gate, which is closed every night at sundown

AT THE BACK OF MOROCCO 2^7

and kept barred until the sun shows again next
morning. Fifty yards away, it was like a town in
ruins, mud-houses rising in tiers, top chambers with
one wall gone and making boxed-in balconies,
hundreds of little peep-hole windows, deep, show-
ing into blackness, but not an inch of glass any-
where.

Moors, big and swarthy and villain-faced, were
squatting on their haunches as we rode up. They
spat on the ground to intimate we were contaminating
the air. But not otherwise did they show any
indication that they noticed us. They went on
talking and never raised their eyes ; it was an example
of Oriental self-possession.

Instead of riding through alleys of mud hovels,
we were in a town of enormously high houses, all of
sun-baked bricks, with fine Moorish arches and
frequently decorated doors. It was like a place of
the dead — a hot, foetid, gasping place. That Roumis
were about had run forward, and doors were closed
and streets deserted.

What streets ! They were tunnels, long and
cavernous and black, and brought to recollection
long, foul railway arches in more civilised parts of
the world. The air was stuffy and filled with dust.
At each turning were shafts of light. The leading
Arab spurred forward through the gloom, and made
a curious picture, with the sun on his bright raiment
and the gorgeous trappings of his saddlery. He sig-
nalled us to come on. The mysterious, deserted, dark
passage-ways would have put quaint thoughts into
the most unimaginative. We laughed that, if the
Moors wanted to make holiday with us, our two

248 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

Arab guards would not be much defence — thoi;gh
we fancied the French would make thhigs lively
for the inhabitants of El Abid afterwards.

A few men crouching in the shadows of the wall,
a few white and ungainly bundles which we knew to
be women, hobbling hurriedly into dim doorways —
those were all the inhabitants we saw.

More groves of date-palms. We were splashing
up a water channel. A swift yell, and we pulled
bridles. A Moor appeared above a wall. We must
stop. We were going to where Moorish women,
unveiled, were clothes-washing at a well. If we went
there it would be taken we had gone to feast our
eyes on the faces of Moslem women, and that is what
no strange man must do. Of course we would stop.
At a turn, we reined our horses round, and when we
got back there was the IMoor with a bundle of fresh-
plucked dates in the folds of his burnous, and he
offered us to eat. On some palms were skewered
the skulls of dead beasts — to bring good luck.

Oasis joined oasis, and each town was walled.
Sometimes a stern buttress, sometimes a crumbling
mud bank. From sun-up to sun-down — except for
a couple of hours when we halted to feed and to doze
beneath the palms by the edge of a river in a gorge —
we were in the saddle, visiting these weird towns of
far-away Figuig, towns with quaint names — Tahtani,
El-Oudaghir, El-Maiz Faokani, Zleman, El-Hamman
Foukani and Zenaga.

Like names out of the " Arabian Nights." The
oasis itself : a little bit of green, the child of trickling
streams from unexplored mountains. The towns
like honeycombed ant-hills : mighty structures of

AT THE BACK OF MOROCCO 249

mud. The people, barbarous, fanatical, superstitious,
hating the Christian, fearing the foreigner, with no
learning, with knowledge of the world all askew,
places to which civilisation has not yet come, where
life is primitive and semi-savage, where there is
belief that jinns inhabit the hills, where town gates
are closed to keep out night wanderers, where women
weave with hand-shuttle the clothes of the people,
and the men water their dates and sell them to
passing caravans, where women are little other than
slaves and beasts of burden, where, when evening
comes, silence and mystery cloak the town and the
streets are so black they are like holes drilled into
the night.

Yet, for all this, how fascinating ! What a throb
of adventure it gives to go riding through this
troublous region, where things are very much as they
have been these thousand years ! I liked to see the
old walls and the cumbersome gates, to see the haughty
Moor turn aside whilst fingering his silver-embossed
carbine. It was romantic to watch a bundle of white
clothing standing in a recess, and, through a little
chink near the top of the bundle, see one bright
Oriental woman's eye fixed on you.

It was at El-Oudaghir that the Moors showed
themselves freely. Their women kept out of the
way, but the men strutted along the dark lanes and
cavernous passages. But they never gave the salute
to the stranger which is customary in Algeria. There
was no market. There were no souks, or bazaars.
One or two half-cellars, with dealers squatting on tlie
stone slabs at the door, was all I saw. The chief
industry was the repair of firearms — a medley assort-

250 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

ment of antique guns which were old at the time of
Waterloo.

Some of the ways seemed at the bottom of a
well, so high were the adjoining walls. Long stone
benches were polished with much lounging. There
was a lot of disease, and creatures in tatters with
faces eaten away with festers hobbled by.

Here, at El-Oudaghir, resides the Pasha, the repre-
sentative of the Sultan of Morocco. But the Pasha
was away at Tangier, and I missed the talk I had
anticipated. His palace is of mud. There is a
courtyard, and two men in red fezzes and rags were
leaning on antique rifles. A stone's throw from the
town is a jumble of huts — the Moorish barracks.
Sour-looking tatterdemalions, who receive no pay,
slouched over the adjoining graves — hundreds of
thousands of graves, marked only by jagged stones
to show where the dead lie. Nobody cares for the
dead. Paths are across the graves. I had to ride
over them with my horse.

At a corner of the town was a crumbling tower.
On the tower stood a red-capped old fellow with the
blackest of faces and a spray of grey beard sprouting
under his chin. He was on sentinel duty, with his
rifle on shoulder. There was the saddest look in his
bleared and rheumy eyes. Maybe he was mourning
over the defeated glories of the Moors. He was
looking east, a decrepit old chap with a rusty rifle
on a crooked mud tower — supposed to be guarding
the last outpost of his royal master, the Sultan at
Fez. He was a pathetic figure, not only in himself,
but in what he represented. I rode up towards him
and saluted. But he took no notice. I turned my

AT THE BACK OF MOROCCO 251

horse and steadied it, so that I might take a snap-
shot from the saddle. The old man disappeared as
through a trap-door.

The Children of Israel are everywhere, and I
found forty families of them in El-Oudaghir. Into
some of their houses I went. There was nothing
to distinguish the men from the Moors in costume,
and little in countenance, except that they were
softer in feature, and they had that furtive, cringing,
kicked-dog look which marks Jews in countries
where they have been subjected to centuries of
persecution. Through darksome passages to a space
opening to the sky, and then various stories resting
on unhewn palm trunks, but each room with no
wall towards the opening ; a few rush mats, a few
grimy pots and pans, a few unclean children with
eyes blocked with flies, a plentitude of squalor — that
was the characteristic of all these Jewish houses.

But the women were bedecked. There was kohl
to give sparkle to their eyes, and henna dye to give
beauty to their fingers. They wore turbans of red
and jackets of yellow and petticoats of red again.
Rings of gold, with a circumference of six inches,
were in their ears ; to these were attached chunks
of rough coral and bits of amber, and beads and
silver coins from all the Mediterranean countries,
and the lobe of the ear was often extended. Neckleis,
also of crude coral and amber and bunches of coins.
Papal, Spanish, Moorish, French — very barbaric
they all looked. They wore armlets and anklets of
heavy curves of silver.

Our Arab guard had told us of a ravine where
water and the shelter of palms could be got whilst

252 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

we rested during the furious heat of midday. It
was about a couple of miles from the walls of El-
Oudaghir. We had got beyond the gates, passed the
Sultan's barracks, and were riding through a break
in the outer wall which circles the whole oasis, when
" ping, ping, bang ! " went guns.

We dug heels into our horses, sprang into the
open, and wheeled round. The Arabs raised their
rifles. Half a mile away, and from the shelter of the
palms and the walls, a parcel of Moors were having
shots at us. I have never laid claim to any courage,
and as I had no weapon but a riding-whip, I was not
particularly cock-a-hoop. There is nothing funny in
being shot at. The four of us might have given
chase, and there would have been an interesting
five minutes. But the shots were falling short, a
good two himdred yards short of us ; we saw the
little kicks of dust where the hard-baked earth was
peppered. So we just " cleared out." We put a
good face on it by waving our hands to the Moorish
gentlemen behind the mud wall, were glad their
guns were old and carried no distance, and we rode
across the desert as though we were brave creatures
chasing somebody instead of really getting out of the
way. When we got to the dip and munched our
lunch, and smoked and felt drowsy, we put one of
the Arabs up on the bank to watch. Wlien we awoke
he had no news.

It was still scorching afternoon when we cantered
into the town of Zenaga, the largest of the anti-
French haunts in the oasis. Our horses gave a leap,
and, before we quite knew what we were doing, our
four affrighted horses were in the tiny market-place.

AT THE BACK OF MOROCCO 253

which was packed with Moors. Horses at any time
are unusual in these close-packed towns, but the
sudden apparition of two Arabs, wearing the blue
cloaks of French service, and two Europeans in the
hated garb of the unbeliever, aroused commotion.
Perhaps the Moors thought they were being attacked.
There was uproar, and we were surrounded by a
hundred white -robed, savage -faced and dagger-eyed
men. Our horses, restless at the quietest of times,
began careering. A gun went off with violent
explosion. I really thought something exciting was
about to take place. No damage. A Moor in a
cafe had seized his rifle, inadvertently pulled the
trigger, and landed his bullet in the roof. We slipped
from our horses, and stood, the centre of an angry,
gesticulating mob. The Ai'abs sighted friends, and
the situation was explained.

We sat in the doorway of a shop, and, over a
charcoal fiie, water was boiled, and we were regaled
with syrupy tea in dirty glasses. The air was stifling ;
it was not only hot, but it was laden with powdered
brick-dust. There was a myriad of tantalising flies.
The atmosphere reeked with unwashed Moor. How-
ever, we sat there and drank the over-sugared tea,
and smiled and shook hands with Moors, and pre-
tended we were having the time of our lives !

The warm oven-flush of the desert afterwards
felt cool by contrast. The air of the desert is clean.

CHAPTER XXII

MOROCCO

Morocco — the West-land of the ancients— but an
Eastern country just across the way from Europe.

A wild country and a wild people, having nothing
in common with the moderns. The Arab in the
plains is squeezed by the Moors of the towns ; the
Berber hillmen, with their forays and fanatical risings,
make the flabby -hearted townsmen tremble. The
Jew, cringing when weak, wrings the life-blood out
of the Moslem when he has the power. A people
incapable of self-government. A rickety throne,
with bloody-handed pretenders constantly claiming
it. A country with European nations playing the
deep game of diplomacy to secure it. A region of
corruption, confusion, and contradiction. That is
Morocco.

Yet it is well to remember that through all the
vicissitudes of the centuries — with England inheriting
a port here, Spain holding one there, France seizing
one somewhere else — Morocco has never had the
flag of a Christian nation, nor even the flag of Moham-
medan Turkey, flying over it. Intending conquerors
have come, but every time they have been compelled
to go back. The warrior Berbers were always too
much for them. The bringing of the Mohammedan
faith to the hills did nothing to reconcile the hatred

254

MOROCCO 255

of the people toward the people of the East. It
seemed to put the fire of frenzy into their veins.
And when they were not resisting the invader they
were fighting each other.

A decrepit country to-day. But once the Moors
crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, conquered southern
Spain, held it fol* five hundred years, and the archi-
tectural glories of Cordova, Granada and Seville tell
of their culture. Now Spain is trying to grip pieces of
the coast. I remember the night when, in a foul
little coasting boat, I arrived at Melilla, one of the
Spanish-held towns. The Spanish gendarmes came
off to make sure we were not a Moorish pirate craft.
One imposing don of a gendarme, in striped white,
and wearing a cocked hat, crushed up at the back
as though he was in the habit of taking his siesta
in it, stood at the head of the gangway and spoke
furious Spanish to Moors who did not understand
what he said ; and then he punched those who were
escaping from Melilla, and pushed those who were
adventurous enough to desire to get into it. Spaniards
were tumbling baggage overboard, and slim, black-
clad, whiskered, crouching Jews were crawling on
deck with more baggage than they could properly
carry. They flung their beds amongst the grime
and cuspidatory di^^charges of asthmatic Spaniards
on that portion of the deck called " first class," until
they were hustled forward to dirtier places suitable
for fourth-class passengers.

The Spanish occupation of Melilla gave the dons
a warm time. The Moors were in revolt, and a lot
of Spanish blood was lost before victory came. It
came not because the Moors were defeated, but

256 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

because the Moors in the adjoining mountains went
inland to gather their crops. Cunning fellows, these
Moors ! In the early morning they would spread
bundles of their burnouses on the ground. Up
would go the Spanish spying balloon, and through
the glasses the Spaniards were sure they saw a great
body of the enemy. They signalled to the gunners
m what valley the enemy lay, and then there was a
bombardment of those burnouses. Meanwhile the
Moors were in the shelter of the mountains, safe and
grinning. At night they gathered their burnouses
and slept in them, and next morning they spread
them somewhere else. Spain now claims many
millions of money from Morocco, but it is not likely
to get them.

A rich land, envied by Spain and by France, but
sparsely developed. It is possible to get two crops a
year in Morocco, but the native only troubles about
one, for the extra profit ^^'ould go into the pockets of
those in authority over him. And the Moors do not
go pirating any more. It is a fact that, but for the
English, the mountain-fringed land of Morocco would
never have become a famous breeding place of
pirates. It was the English who taught the Moors
to fight Spain on the waters. WTien they had learnt
the art, the Moors preyed on English as well as other
shipping, and they even sailed as far north as Lundy
Island to lie in wait for rich vessels coming from
Bristol. Many an Englishman disappeared as a
slave to Fez and Marrakesh, and many an English-
woman found herself perforce the spouse of a Moor.
Then there was the trade of ransom carried on by
Roman Catholic priests. Kind Christians gave alms.

MOROCCO «57

and the priests bargained for the release of captives.
So thousands were rescued, but the story of many
other thousands is lost — save for the fair-skinned
Moors you meet. Now laugh at the story of John
Dunton, mariner, who became a slave. He redeemed
himself, and was then sent out as a master and pilot
in a Moorish pirate ship to England to capture
Christians. He brought his pirate employers to the
Isle of Wight, and right up to Hurst Castle " where I
was detained as a pirate and sent to Winchester with
the rest." Not for long, one hopes. John Dunton
must have chuckled when telling the story how,
under pretence of leading the Moors to capture
Christians, he got the whole crew of them landed in
the most Christian gaol of Winchester.

Travellers have zigzagged their way through
the hills of Morocco, and yet there are great stretches
of the country which have never been visited. As
the women draw their veils to hide their faces from
men, so the Moors have striven to draw a veil to hide
their country from the stranger. Those who know
Morocco best are the first to admit they know very
little of Morocco.

The Moor is sullen. He distrusts the Christian.
Rarely will he speak his true thoughts. Virility has
been sapped from the modern Moor. He is a decrepit
descendant from marauding, quarrelsome sires.

Other countries, willy-nilly, are affected with the
spin of the years. They cannot escape the influence
of what we grandiloquently call "this progressive
age." Morocco stands still. Get a day's ride from
one of the ports, and Morocco is just the same to-day
as it has been for centuries. We can understand,
J

258 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

however, how, at the bitter core of his heart, feeUng
impotence, there flickers and flames the old fire of
resentment against the European. The pride, but
none of the power, of his ancestors remains. He knows
he is superior to the Christian. Pie knows that the
foreign occupants of the Legations at Tangier are
there to do obeisance to his sovereign lord the Sultan
at Fez. But behind his arrogance is dread. What
Allah wills shall be. It is written.

Anarchy reigns. The Sultan sends forth his tax-
collectors, but the Berbers fight them with crude
guerilla warfare. Well, they have to be punished,
A rabble of soldiery are dispatched to the district.
Villages are destroyed, cattle seized, crops burnt —
but the Berbers are in the hills, where they cannot be
followed. Anyway, they have resisted the tax-collectors
for some years. They have maintained their indepen-
dence. But m time they have to submit. There is
the promise of tribute, prisoners are handed over,
some are beheaded, and the heads are taken away
and exhibited over the gateways of the cities as a
proclamation of the Sultan's power. Taxes are paid
for a year or two, until there is trouble elsewhere,
and then rebellion breaks loose again.

Everybody in Morocco wears the slipper, down at
heel. The slip-slop of the walk is typical of the
character of the people. Nobody has any interests
outside his own business. So there is no public
spirit. Things go much as they drift. The prin-
ciple is never to do to-day what can be put off until
to-morrow. The universal immorality has numbed
any of the finer senses the Moors ever had. The
only failing which shocks a Moor is drunkenness.

MOROCCO 259

It is to be found in the port towns, but it is unheard
of in the interior. For generations the use of tobacco
was prohibited — indeed, there have been seizures
and all the tobacco burned — but the prohibition is
now a dead letter. The devout Moor, who will
contemptuously spit on the ground at the habits of
" those filthy Nazarenes," as he often calls the
foreigner, thinks it no shame to keep half a dozen
girls in his harem. WTien he gets old, the rheumy
reprobate will declare all is vanity, and take to much
reading of the Koran. A Moor's piety increases in
proportion to his impotence. The Paiadise he
dreams of in the shadow of the mosque is when he
will be young again and have the most captivating
of houris as his companions. The conversation of
Moors is invariably on licentious subjects. The
Moor is venal in his youth, and corrupt for the rest
of his life. The rejuvenation of such a race seems
an impossibility.

You can show a Moor all the achievements of
civilisation, the wonders of mechanical science ; but
he will not be impressed. I remember showing to
some Moors a thermos bottle, thinking they would
be interested. No ; they looked at it with the uncon-
cern of a donkey looking at a wheelbarrow. This
was not Oriental reserve, the result of training never
to show surprise. It was inability to understand.
The only mechanism I have ever seen a Moor appre-
ciate has been a modern rifle. It is no good telling
a Moor of the wonders of foreign cities. He has
the American habit of capping your statement by
telling you of something much bigger and more
wonderful in his own country. He simply will not

26o THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

believe that any land has anything superior to
Morocco.

This is the kind of Moor you encounter in the
towns. The country folk, the Berbers, are braver,
with more sap in them, are fierce enemies and good
friends, and are disposed to hospitality to the stranger
if they are satisfied of his friendly intentions. The
finest fellows I saw were the Riffs — tall, lean, sinewy,
and with the clear eyes of courageous men. They
love fighting for fighting's sake, and I verily believe
they would rather you approached them with a
rifle than with an olive-branch.

Women are of little account. The mother of a
son is honoured, but if she gives birth to a girl she
is reviled. If the daughter lacks physical charm
she is an ill-used servant all her life. Let her be
pretty, then she will go in marriage to a rich man,
and the gift to her parents will be worth having.
Or, if she is very pretty, she may even aspire to the
Sultan's harem. The hearts of the Moorish mother
and father flutter at the idea of a daughter of theirs
maybe becoming the mother of a Sultan. For a
daughter to get entrance to the Sultan's seraglio is
a greater social honour than for a European lady to
be received at Court.

There is much scheming and wire-pulling and
presents before the frightened and yet delighted girl
is given residence in the Palace. Possibly the Sultan
knows nothing about her coming. She will lead the
life of a toy. In the high-walled and secluded gardens
she will sport until, maybe, one day the eye of the
Sultan falls upon her. Perhaps she becomes the
favourite. Perhaps her royal master soon tires of

MOROCCO 261

her. Maybe, however, besides beauty she has con-
versational gifts, shrewdness — ^and all Oriental women
are by no means stupid — and she gains ascendancy
over the Sultan. This is rare.

At times the royal harem needs thinning. So a
bunch of ladies are sent off to Tafilet, in the Atlas
Mountains. " There," says Mr. Budgett Meakin,
" every other man is a direct descendant of some
Moorish king, as for centuries it has served as a sort
of overflow for the prolific royal house." Sometimes
the Sultan will honour an appreciated governor of a
town with a cast-off lady of the royal harem as a
present.

There is no happy home life such as Western
nations understand it. The husband and wife are
not mated because of mutual affection ; they never
see each other till the wedding-night. The husband,
if he can afford it, will have a second, third and
fourth wife. The first wife, as she loses her attrac-
tiveness, is degraded. Still, as a rule, a Moor is
content with one wife ; but he can introduce con-
cubines into the house. They are cheaper than
wives, and can more easily be got rid of. The women
are in prisons ; though, on the whole, not ill-treated,
according to Oriental ideas.

The Moorish woman, like the Moor, lets her
thoughts run in one channel. The very fact that no
other man but her master can speak to her makes
her desire the forbidden fruit. So the Moors do not
like their women-folk to do too much visiting over
the house-tops. They know their own nature, and
they suspect the nature of others. When a Moor
goes on a journey he not infrequently locks his wife

262 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

inside a room and takes the key away with him.
There she remains, a prisoner till his return, and her
food is supplied through a tiny grating of a window.

A nice trait in the Moors is their fondness for
children. A Moor is unfeignedly happy with his
youngsters, and their prankishness and mischievous-
ness — for Moslem children are much the same as
children of the Nazarenes — instead of meeting with
rebuke are regarded with amiable forbearance. That
the father should care more for the boys than girls
is only in accord with the sentiment of his people.

The manner in which infants are treated makes
one wonder how any of them ever survive. Infant
mortality is great. What is surprising is the way
the little ones bear the heat. A peasant woman will
tightly strap a child to her back with a shawl, so
tightly that the limbs cannot possibly move, and only
the head is protruding. The little head is often
shaved, there is no covering, and the sun-rays beat
down with intensity until you are sure the brains
must be stewing. Yet the child dozes quite happily,
unheeding the sun as it unheeds the myriad flies
swarming about its eyes and mouth and nostrils.

The North African boy — and I know him from
Tangier to Port Said — is the liveliest, merriest,
quickest-witted little rascal imaginable. At school
he is bright and learns with alacrity. But there is
a stojDping-place, beyond which he rarely seems to
go. As he nears manhood, he dulls and becomes
heavy ; his power of assimilating knowledge comes
to an end. You wonder why it is such bright boys
grow into such stodgy-brained men. Peep into a
Moorish school — a bare room, matted, with a cluster

MOROCCO 263

of shoes by the door, a whiskered man squatting at
the farther end, and all the lads shouting, mechanic-
ally rather than intelligently, long passages from the
Koran. The school fees are trifling, but if a lad is
smarter than his fellows the master takes care to
show his paces, before the delighted father, and so
extract from him a gift of money.

To give signs of prosperity is to invite oppression
by Moorish officials. They have little or no pay ;
they have secured their posts by favouritism or
bribery ; they must recoup themselves by peculation
and by tyranny — the invariable method of tax-
collecting in the Orient. So there is miserable kow-
towing to those who have the power. The villager
makes presents to the chief of his village to save his
goods from seizure ; the chief slips money into the
palms of his superior to save his teeth being drawn.
The higher man has to " sweeten " those at Court,
or he will be impeached and beheaded and all his
property seized. Every Moor hungers for a post in
which he may plunder those beneath him, though
he knows he will be plundered by those above him.
A desire to obtain wealth by crooked means is
ingrained in the mind of the Moor.

There is devilish subtlety in the pimishnients
inflicted by those in authority on those who have
roused their enmity. The Jew has no friends.
Usury is forbidden by Mohammedan law. But the
Jew practises it. Then he is seized. His beard is
plucked out. The palms of his hands are lacerated
with a dagger, and salt is rubbed into the wounds.
The two hands are placed flat against each other and
a tight-fltting glove is placed over both and the

264 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

wrists are roped. The raw flesh, trying to knit,
causes excruciating agony. The Jew is released when
he reveals where his wealth is hidden. M. Jean de
Taillis describes a horrible sight when he visited
Moulay Mohammed, then Pretender, who had just
won a battle. An " entertainment " was provided
after dinner. A prisoner named Achmet proved to
be a deserter from Moulay's army, and so a lesson
against treachery had to be taught. The poor wretch
was dressed in a couple of woollen cloaks and brought
to the middle of the camp. There he was girt with
a garment of straw. His clothes were drenched with
petroleum ; he was fastened to a dead tree and
fire applied. Death came quickly. The herald pro-
claimed through all the camp the fitting reward of
disloyalty. When M. de Taillis took his leave on
the morrow he was given an escort which also had
the duty of conveying eighty-four pickled heads of
prisoners, trophies of the recent fight. And all that
day, and the following night, he was haunted by the
gruesome sound of the skulls as they were jolted
about in the baskets. When silver is being conveyed
to Fez it is the order of the Sultan that the soldiers
who guard it should behead a man at every stage,
proclaiming him to be a thief, and so making a reign
of terror.

A minor punishment is to wrench out the finger-
nails. Or the culprit is swung up by arms and legs,
his face downwards, and he is bastinadoed till the
blood spurts. When he swoons, he is doused with
water till he recovers, and then the thongs swish
and cut the flesh again. Or the victim is seated in
a basket, hands tied to the side ; he is thrown on

MOROCCO 265

his back and the lash falls swiftly on the soles of the
bare feet till they are a mass of gore.

Horrible though these things are — though the
Moor who suffers shrieks for mercy — every Moor
considers cruelty and barbarity as legitimate. There
is no public opinion against oppression. It is accepted
as a proper and usual proceeding. A humane Sultan,
however lauded in Europe, would be a farcical
figure in the eyes of his subjects, and would soon
earn their contempt. There is no respect for worldly
justice.

Fez, the white capital, is a place of high walls
and narrow streets. The ]\Ioors there are fairer than
in other parts of the country. One reason is that the
people keep out of the sun as much as possible. Another
reason is that the rich men of Fez like fair girls as
their concubines. A girl with a European strain in
her — generally stolen from the coast — is sure to bring
a good price in the slave market. She is the creature
of her miaster's passion, and if she hesitates to respond
to his lustful desires she is whipped, and if obdurate
she is murdered. It is nobody's business. What is
the value of a mere woman ?

The streets are so narrow — black slits between the
houses — that the roofs seem to touch one another,
and here sit the women, laughing and gossiping
licentious scandal — for they have no ideals, and
usually fit in with the customs of the country.

The richer a man is the more concubines he has.
He cannot spend his money in horses or automobiles ;
he buys young girls. Ill-treatment is exceptional,
for good-looking damsels cost money, and expensive
possessions are not to be injured. The fat Moor
J*

266 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

sips his coffee, reclines on cushions, and the girls
sing to him or dance. The favourite is the Dance
of the Bee, a sensual performance in which the dancer
pretends she has been stung, and proceeds to strip
off all clothing in the endeavour to discover the
imaginary wound. The wealthy Moor prefers to
have concubines to adding to the number of his
wives, because he can see a slave ghl before he buys
her, and he cannot see his prospective wife, who is
kept veiled until after the marriage ceremony ; the
slave, also, is more obedient than the wife, because he
can more easily get rid of her. If he tires, and some-
one at Court despoils him of his belongings, lie can
sell her again or turn her out.

Many of these freed women sell their charms tem-
porarily to any who will buy. They mostly live in
one part of Fez, near the river. The houses are dens
of crime. Often there is sharp murder and the bodies
are tossed into the water. But the river flows past
the Sultan's orange garden, and an iron grill has
been erected to catch the bodies, so as not to offend
the sight of his Majesty if he is sipping sherbet
beneath the trees near the water's edge.

The slave market — an ordinary courtyard — is
always held at twilight, between sunset and dark.
Most of the wares are little negresses brought up
from the region toward Tmibuctoo. Old men fumble
their plumpness, feel the hardness of their flesh,
make them stretch their arms, show their teeth,
walk about and generally exhibit themselves. The
price depends on quality, youth and looks. Many
slaves, nearly white, are the result of tribal wars,
and fetch good prices. A son born of a slave ranks

MOROCCO 267

with a legitimate son. Many of the leading men in
Morocco had slave mothers. The girls, when they
grow up, are sold or given as presents to adorn the
harems of friends.

The ladies delight in visiting. They do not go
into the streets, except to the bath or to visit the
cemetery on a Friday ; but they climb the little
parapets on the roofs and sometimes carry a ladder
to assist them. It is a deadly offence for a man,
when on his own roof-top, to look upon the roof-top
of a neighbour where w^omen may be sitting unveiled.
Still, I have known it happen.

There is only one carriage in Fez, and that was
presented to the Sultan by Queen Victoria. But
the Sultan cannot use it because the coachman's seat
is higher than his own. There is not sufficient water
for boating in the palace grounds. So, on the days
his Majesty desires to boat, the whole water supply
of Fez has to be directed into the park, and for
two days over an eighth of a million of people have
no water.

The recently deposed Sultan was chiefly distin-
guished for his insolence to the envoys of foreign
Powers. Perhaps one of the reasons for this was that
he subscribed to Press agencies, and had in his employ
a Syrian who knew six languages, and read news-
paper cuttings which told what was said about him in
English, French and German journals. A Frenchman
who recently visited the Moorish Court thus describes
what he saw : " Mulai Hafid sat on a tapestried sofa
with his legs crossed under him. He greeted our
entrance with a fixed stare, his flashing black eye
lighting up his otherwise impassive countenance-

268 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

On his right, seated on a carpet, was his Grand Vizier.
A little behind him was an old woman of almost
negroid blackness, but with features denoting energy
and intelligence. She is, in fact, a remarkably clever
woman. She follows the Sultan everywhere, tastes
his food and drink (as a precaution against poison),
and even accompanies him to the mosque. She
exercises remarkable influence over him. Frequently
she massages the foot of his Shereefian Majesty,
which is alwajT^s bare. \Vhen Mulai Hafid wishes to
honour one of his courtiers, he sends the old lady
away, and holds out his foot to the fortunate person
on whom his choice falls."

A strange, fascinating, cruel land is Morocco —
very difficult for the European to understand.

CHAPTER XXIII

TANGIER

It is the last of the Oriental cities. Aiid this last
child of the East — with nothing lying beyond
but unknown waters of the Atlantic — stands in
regretful pose. Her face is turned back eastward.
All the cities of her lineage have greeted the sun
before she greets it. Wlien the ocean behind her is
flushed with the glory of evening, the Moors assemble
on the house-tops, and look toward the blackness as
though their fiery eyes would pierce the gloom until
Mecca itself were spied.

Blue, white, cream-tinted, but chiefly blue, Tangier
sits on the left shoulder of an exquisite, north-facing
bay. Tangier, however, is ever looking back, ever
eastward. That is why, when the waters of the sea
mirror the pale beauty of the sky, and Tangier is
just a splash of coloured lights and dead shadows —
like a Brabazon picture turned into reality — a mourn-
ful haze seems to wrap the city. There is busy life
in the marts ; there is the minaret of the mosque,
the cry to prayer ; there is the fantastic glamour of
the Orient. But it is the last city. It is the
boundary ; it is the end of all things Oriental. If
cities have souls, then I think Tangier must sigh,
" I am alone ; I am cut oft from my kindred. All

my hopes are in the East. Though I am the wes'^ern-

269

270 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

most city in Mauretania, my glance is ever towards
the East."

Now, if Moorish Tangier would stretch eastward,
even a single mile, it cannot. No way farther east
can the Moor erect his narrow passages and blank-
walled houses. Tangier is cut off; it is stranded.
For a French syndicate has bought up most of the
land east of the native city, and the sand dunes
which have not been purchased by Frenchmen have
been taken over by German amalgamations. A
tiee-dotted, straight boulevard is growing, and boards
announce that adjoining land is to let and facilities
will be given for payment by instalments. A tram-
way is to nm along the boulevard. It is expected
European Tangier, one of these days, will be a gay
little Paris. Moorish Tangier will remain where it
is, at the western end, but in the bend of the bay
with glance toward Mecca.

The Sultan lives at Fez, but Tangier is the real
capital of Morocco. Here stay the Ministers from
Foreign Powers, and, with much polite squabbling,
they manage things between them. France smiles,
and sees the time when most of IMorocco will be hers.
But with no fortifications on the hills overlooking
the Straits of Gibraltar, insists Great Britain.

France would like to build railways, but Germany,
so progressive at home, is sure railways would be
bad for Morocco — that is, French railways.

However, the French look after the Customs, and
the Spaniards train the police. There is Moorish
money, but English shillings, French francs, Spanish
pesetas, are all good currency.

Morocco has no effective postal service. Each

I

TANGIER 271

country of importance has its own post office and its
own stamps. At the Cecil Hotel an English boy
came at half-past nine to open the red letter-box
on one side of the vestibule, and at a quarter to ten
a German youth appeared to open the silver-grey
letter-box on the other side of the vestibule.

At the cafes in the twisted main street you can
order your favourite beverage in half a dozen languages,
and the waiter understands.

The Moor dislikes the unbeliever. If he is going
to perdition, he prefers to go his own way. He does
not believe in modern inventions — railways and
telegraphs and telephones. If he likes a rickety
mule-track over the mountains, what business is it
of the vinbeliever to say there should be carriage
roads ? The Moor does not want your civilisation.
After all, it is his country, and if it is misgoverned it
is no concern of the foreigner. Besides, when the
foreigner talks about enlightenment and progress,
and civilisation and Christianity, he means grabbing
slices of Morocco. The Moor chuckles sardonically
in his beard, and says the Moors taught Spain all
the civilisation it has ever had.

The Moors hate France and suspect Great Britain.
Germany is a friend, because Germany spokes the
wheels of French progress in Morocco. The Moors
would rather all Christians went away. The only
thing Christians ever made which the Moors can
appreciate is the Mauser rifle. But the foreigners
prohibit the importation of Mausers into Morocco.
Just like the Christian, who has a modern rifle, and
in disputes with the Moors thinks it is fair fighting
to restrict the Moor to antique flintlocks, muzzle-

272 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

loading, which cannot cany shot much farther than
across the road I The Moor would like to have a
thorough throat-slicing of every Christian in Morocco.

Come up the cobble-paved and funnel-like streets
to the crumbling remains of native Tangier.

The Palace ! In the dim light of evening you
can venture on strange imaginings. Long, dark
passages with heavy doors. Moorish tiles, and some-
times Spanish tiles. The outer walls are high and
stout, and without windows. All chambers look into
inner courts which have arcades, and in the centre
are fountains — without water.

The custodian carries a mass of keys. Maybe it
was some predecessor of his who accompanied Blue-
beard on his rounds. The dimpled woodwork of
the roofs is soft with shadow and age. Much gentle
carving of stucco makes a frieze like a band of lace.
But the splashing of cheap whitewash has obliterated
much delicacy of tracery.

The Palace smells musty. The Sultan, in Fez,
has no money for its repair. The kind French,
however, are seeing to that. In the Audience
Chamber they have laid down eye-aching cheap
mats ; and along the remnants of Moorish art they
have tacked the cords of electric wire ; and cheap
opalesque shades, edged with port red, hang where
only the dull brass of Oriental lamps would be appro-
priate. No divans encased in silken embroideries
worked by the ladies of the harem. Gimcrack modern
French furniture, with atrocious yellow plush orna-
mentation. How lacking in taste the French can be
when they really try !

A fat Frenchman— a man in authority no doubt —

TANGIER «73

told the custodian that next day he was bringing a
party of French ladies to picnic in the Palace, and
visitors must be kept out. Giggling Parisiennes, in
high-heeled shoes and voluminous hats and tight-
fitting skirts, invading the Palace where only the
beauties among Moorish women were once admitted,
and now are flown to the limbo of the unknown —
perhaps they are houris in the Moslem Paradise, and
there sip celestial sherbet whilst reclining on carpets
which owe none of their charm to aniline dye.

The Treasury is next door. There are narrow
steps hoisting steep to the portico. The arches are
rich curves, and the sun never breaks the shade of
the inner court. There is no Aladdin to motion you
to some mysterious wall face, whisper the word
and, when the stone panel slides, conduct you by
glimmering, archaic lamp down worn steps to dungeons
where diamonds are stocked like coals and bars of
gold are piled in corners. Nothing like that. But
in a corner is a stack of heavy trunks, not ordinary
trunks that a railway porter can swing with one
hand, but trunks half as high as a man, half as long
again as a man, and with a span of from finger-tip
to finger-tip. — American ladies touring the European
continent sometimes have trunks approaching the size
of the trunks in the Treasury at Tangier. — Yes, and
to rob the story of interest, these trunks are quite
empty. Not a gold coin is to be found lodged within
a crack. Give them a kick, and they boom like a
dismantled cupboard. But, in the stirring days of
long ago, they were filled with treasure, and were
carried to Fez and back from Fez, and it required
six tame mules, three in long shafts in front and

274 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

three in long shafts behind, to ferry each of these
trunks from coast to capital.

Not a coin in the Treasury ! The French appro-
priate all the money from the Customs by way of
indemnity, because the Moors did not want the
French to civilise them at Casablanca. The INIoors
lost many men ; they lost Casablanca ; now the
revenue is annexed at the gates, and much of it is
spent in providing troops to compel the j\Ioors to
accept the advantages of civilisation. Meanwhile, the
man who looks after the Treasury is very pleased
to accept a tip of half a franc.

There is a hubbub. I stand on the steps, and
from the Court of Justice on the right a scant-clad
and turbanless Moor, ejaculating horrible things, is
in the custody of two khaki-clad, Spanish-drilled
Moorish policemen, and they are hastening him to
prison.

The Court is like the vestibule to a big building —
only it is all vestibule and there is no big building.
Two steps and an oblong apartment. Opposite the
door, and squatting, sit two Moors, one young, the
other elderly. Outside, crouching, resting on their
heels, are Moorish lawyers. On the other side,
standing, and with shoulder-blades against the walls,
are the litigants. I notice the lawyers are jokefully
happy, whilst the litigants have a demure, heart-sick,
wish-I-were-out-of-this-mess look about them — just
as in civilised countries.

The judges listen sedately. They commit to
prison but without definite sentence. The evil-doer
goes to prison, and when he escapes Allah alone can
tell. But in a little whitewashed room to the left

TANGIER 275

of the judges sits an official. He sits on a rush mat,
and he inclines his left ear to a suppliant. He is
solemn, severe, austere, and the suppliant is pleading.
The suppliant pulls up his skirt, produces a wallet,
extracts silver coins. The official examines front, back,
and rim of each coin to be assured of its genuineness.
The suppliant holds the final coin ; he smirks ; surely
the official will not squeeze every drop. The official
smiles, but he squeezes. The money is paid. The
official calls for Hamid or Hassan or Ali or Mohammed
and a prisoner is released. The prisoner kisses noisily
the friend who has bought his discharge. The power
of wealth was as evident here in Tangier as ever it
was in New York.

It cost me a franc and a half to peep into the
prison. Great is the power of baksheesh !

A sort of a landing, with a grizzle -whiskered old
fellow resting on his elbow, who nodded acquiescence,
in charge. Many shoulders had removed much of
the last coat of whitewash. A big, black door,
heavily beamed and with ponderous iron bars, had
a hole breast-high, a hole not quite as large as the
porthole on a passenger ship. There was a jostle
of faces and a surge of hands, just as though a Rugby
scrimmage were on the other side and the hole was
the ball. The custodian jammed his stick in the
hole ; he waggled it. That made room. I could
peer inside.

I looked down an avenue of faces of all shades
of duskiness, faces that were brutal, generally pathetic,
but a whining expression on all of them. The men
held out their palms, not far, for the stick was not
distant, and they all bleated sadly that the visitor

276 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN,

wouid give them money. The authorities had no
money and fed them with hunks of bread. If their
friends did not bring them food, or if people were
not generous in the name of Allah, or if they were
unable to sell the rush baskets they wove in the
prison, they were like to starve. The prison was
just a courtyard. Some of the men had been there
for years. Confinement had made them very weak.
They lay huddled in corners, deadening the pain of
gnawing hunger by drowsing the hours away.

A second chamber, reserved for Jews — not
stunted, bulbous-figured Jews, but long and lean and
wan and hollow-eyed, with ringlets dropping by the
ear from under small, round caps. Wiry black
whiskers tufted their chins. They were saddening
and sickening. In their eyes was the melancholy
which came from generations of ill-usage ; they
looked crushed, pitiful, sneaking ; and yet it seemed
that through the shutter of gloom was the red fke
of enmity.

There was no hustling behind the porthole.
There was no eager cadging of alms. As I put my
face to the hole, they stood about in a group and
stretched out their hands, and beseeching was in
their look. They made no requests. An ill-lit
dungeon, in which they were kept ; most of the light
strained through the porthole. A clang of iron, and
the porthole was closed.

Here was uproar ! " Buy basket, sir ; give
money, sir ! " A third chamber, and the stick drove
back the prisoners.

Strong men, black-haired, sturdy ruffians — not
pilferers who sidle along the dark passages of Tangier

TANGIER 277

at night, but brigands, highwaymen, horse thieves,
the murderers of lonely travellers, assassins, the
desperadoes who live in the hills at the back of
Tangier. No hang-dog sneakiness about them. Coarse-
grained, fleshy-lipped, muscular, they clamoured that
money be given them, or, failing that, you buy a
crude basket. The stick they heed not much. They
snarl at one another. They push, threaten to fight.

A man tumbles. He rises awkwardly, and I
notice he is manacled. Heavy clamps are round his
ankles, as broad as a hand, and there are but two
links of a chain between the anklets. They wear
these for years ; the only movement is a hobble,
and when they are weak they crawl. ^Vhen a man
is released he often does not know how to walk.

One half-minute's walk and I am in sunshine,
and the Bay of Tangier is deep blue flecked with
silver ; French and Spanish warships lie side by side,
and yonder is the Rock of Gibraltar, with the British
flag flying from many a masthead in the harbour.

It is Thursday, and the great market is held on
a muddy slope beyond the upper gates. Peasants
have journeyed a day's march to sell their wares, and
will spend to-morrow returning to their villages. The
town Moor has a slithering gait, but the country men
and country women are stalwart and brawny. Many
of the country women do not veil. They crouch on
their haunches, and beneath enormous, canopy-like
straw hats. They are packed tight, shoulder to
shoulder, and on the ground between their outspread
feet are fowls and groups of eggs and bunches of wild
dates. There is a jostling heave of pedestrians, and
the women scream and pinch passing legs to save

278 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

their property. At one corner, not so crowded, are
women with platters of wheat-cakes before them :
fanged old creatures, water-eyed and parchment-
skinned, and soft-featured young women with olive
complexions and ej^es from which radiance has not
yet been burnt — all divorced women, all at any rate
put away by their husbands, because it was the will of
the husbands, for sundry reasons. By custom, these
women have reserved to them the business of selling
bread.

From one side comes the aroma of cooking.
Dozens of little cook-shop sheds, and all the pre-
paration of food goes on before the customers' eyes.
There are sou]3s, and the sizzle of frying meats, and
the splutter of doughnuts in dishes of hot, bubbling
syrup. At the back of one eating-house is a broad
board. Beneath it a Jew is licking his fingers after
eating a honey-dipped cake, and on it a Moor is
noisily munching pieces of grilled sheep. The appur-
tenances are unattractive, but the food looks good
and smells wholesome.

Resting on a box is a white-clad Moor guarding
a green-edged flag — an emissary from a holy man
in the hills, who expects the Faithful to be
generous, for in his prayers he will invite Allah to
recompense them.

Here are a score of warriors from the Riff Moun-
tains, their dark brown djellabahs or cloaks studded
down the sleeves and round the hem with rosettes
of bright-coloured wool. Ancient flintlocks are slung
across their shoulders — useless weapons, surely, or the
authorities would not permit them in the town.

Rich merchants from Fez carry ornate, silver-

TANGIER 279

sheathed daggers. Fair men from the north, black
men from the south, press and shove and bargain
and squabble. Barbers in their tents are busy-
shaving heads, leaving one long tuft which will be
useful when Gabriel hauls its owner to heaven.
There is a rattle of brass saucers, and a man with a
heavy goat-skin on his hip is selling water. Donkeys
are beaten to a gallop ; mules are spurred to a trot.
I give my assurance that I do not want to purchase
a donkey, and I do not know what I would do with
a nuile.

" La la ! ha-ha ! " and a black man, with a face
so black and so shiny he must have been freshly
painted black that morning, skips forward. " Ho,
ho ! " He smiles and opens wide his pursy, juicy
lips. He grimaces. He has a cap of shells. His
tattered coat is a mosaic of many tints. He has a
strange musical instrument which he twangs and
strums. " Ha, ha ! Ho, ho ! " He dances and he
sings far down his throat. " Yuss, Noo-Yak,
Cheekako, Philadelphee, Wahshing-tong ; Yuss." He
skips and chortles. He is from Timbuctoo, a story-
teller, an entertainer, picturesque in his motley.
Once a United States visitor had a fancy for this
man from Timbuctoo. He took him back with him
to America. The man from Timbuctoo stood the
life for a time ; but it was so noisy and so barbaric
that he returned to Morocco where he could sleep,
and where, in the safety of the Tangier market-place,
he runs no risk of being slain by an electric street
car. Morocco is the happiest country after all — for
him.

Here, in Tangier, West meets East. VVlio are the

28o THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

people at the hotel ? A duke and his wife, the sister
of an exiled queen. A quiet-mannered man with a
touch of the north of England on his tongue, a man
who lives down the coast, at Casablanca, and is engaged
in the Manchester business. A soft-mannered lady
who sits alone ; an American wandering the world.
A decrepit Frenchman and his florid wife. A fat
German and his fat young frau. Two rosy-faced but
awkward-mannered young Englishmen, who spend
much time on horseback scampering along the hard
sands of the sea front. A business man from
Gibraltar, half Spanish in race, but wholly British
in sentiment. An artist — indifferent. An author —
oh, yes, he is indifferent too. Soft-footed Moors are
the servants.

What a mixture of races here, in Tangier I After
dinner a cup of coffee at a cafe where German seems
chiefly to be spoken. Then to a Moorish saloon, and
the sipping of over-sugared mint tea whilst fat women
wriggle their stomachs and call it dancing. Then to
a Spanish cafe. Spry music and the rattle of castanets,
and pretty Spanish girls dance and glide and sing,
and come down and drink beer with generous members
of the audience, and laugh and clap their hands —
just as though life were one long, rapturous, merry
evening.

And everywhere touts and alleged guides, who
know a dozen words of as many languages. You
are badgered to buy picture post cards ; vile imitation
Moorish articles are hawked — scarves, shawls, fake-
jewellery, amber beads, daggers, pistols, powder-
horns, ornate but useless Moorish arms. Tangier is
a peep-show for the entertainment of the tourist.

TANGIER 281

A huge European steamship has just dropped
anchor in the bay. It is crowded with Europeans,
and will remain for four hours. The Europeans are
to make their first acquaintance with the East.
Dozens of row-boats, crowded with passengers, are
jerked to the shelter of the harbour. The visitors
are set upon by the touts. They are all excitement
and. flurry, and they mount red-saddled mules and
go, laughing, and in clattering throng, through the
foul but curious streets with their polyglot denizens
— all very strange to people who have never seen the
East before. Smnking dealers in antiques invite
visitors into their parlours, " not to buy, sare, just
to look," and the touts and guides, who are to get
commissions, press the ladies and gentlemen.

Yet it is agreeable to dawdle in these darkened
rooms packed with Moorish wares. Here is a stack
of ivory-hafted, silver-inlaid rifles, long and slender
and delicate. As you play with the light piece you
wonder about its story : on what young Moor's
shoulder has it rested ; has it ever played a part in
life's tragedy ? But the Jew dealer, seeing the
glint in your eye, is asking two hundred and fifty
francs for it, and you cannot make up your mind
whether it is worth a hundred and twenty francs to
you — and how are you to get it home if you buy it ?
High-pommelled old saddles, once gay with gold
lace and red and green in worked leathers, but now
dull and ragged. Wonderful old Arab lanterns, and
lamps with cups for the eight lights at times of
religious festival. And " Fatma hands " in embossed
brass — what a dumpy, squat-fingered hand the
favourite daughter of ]\Iohammed must have had,

282 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

if these replicas are anything of a hkeness : but
as useful as a horse-shoe to fasten upon a door and
keep ill-hick away. And the neat, soft leather bags,
which every Moor carries suspended from his shoulder,
tasselled, with pocket within pocket and under
pocket, you can buy these by the score. Crude but
attractive Moorish brooches ; chased and filigreed
silver cups with inscriptions from the Koran — what
pretty finger-bowls they would make on a dining-
room table in Paris or Washington or London — and
they are the bowls which Moorish maidens use to
lave themselves with water when at the bath.

Rugs ! " Ah, close the door. Hamid, go and
fetch coffee for the distinguished visitor." The
Jewish dealer knows at once that the distinguished
visitor is a judge of valuable rugs — though maj^be
you did not know it yourself. Of course, he has a
lot of ordinary rugs — is monsieur interested in
tapestries ? — which are good enough for the ordinary
tourist. But the moment monsieur entered the
shop the dealer knew monsieur wanted something
good, trcs antique, real old, very valuable, not like
the rubbish sold by the other dealers.

" I will show you, sare. You not buy if you not
want. No harm in showing. Here, vere beautiful
— this from Tetuan, sare. You been Tetuan, sare ?
Oh, beautiful place, Tetuan ! Vere cheap, two
hundred francs — oh, yes, sare, vere cheap ; no dear ;
no, no dear Look, sare ; feel, vere antique ; you
ask three hundred francs at other shop. I also
ask three hundred francs, but I like you. You man
who knows. No good try fool you. Maybe you
like this ? This Fez work ; all hand work, sare.

TANGIER 283

Vere beautiful. No ? Here, sare, this is beauty ;
hang round walls, all silk — seven arches, you see
Arabic design ; this from house of great chief in the
Riff Mountains. Me ask two hundred francs, but
let you have it for a hundred and fifty francs, but "
— in a whisper — " you not tell any other dealers you
buy so cheap. Vere angry other dealers wid me
if know I sell so cheap. Oh, sare ! Fifte-e-e francs !
You only offer fifty francs ? See, all silk, seven arches,
Arabic design, all hand-sewn ! You give me a hundred
and twenty francs ? No ? You give me a hundred
francs ? No ? You give me eighty francs ? Oh,
sare, look ; hand-sewn, all silk, seven arches Arabic
design — vere beautiful decoration on wall at home.
See, sare, listen ; you give me seventy-five francs ;
you take my name — here on my card — you sell in
London ; if you do not get two hundred francs me
give you money back. Fifte-e-e ! Oh, sare ! I
give more mine self. Give me sixty. You vere
intelligent man, I know. See ! You first man buy
to-day. Me believe in luck. Tell you, give me
fifty francs for tapestry and 'nother ten francs present
to my wife. No ? Sare, you not know what bargain
you are getting. You pay much more other dealer ;
I vere cheap. Fifte-e-e, sare ! All right, I let you
have it for fifty. Hamid, just wrap up. Look here,
sare ; lovely piece. This Marakeesh work ; vere
good work, Marakeesh. You find another piece like
this in Tangier, me give you this for noddin'. Other
man ask a hundred and fifty francs ; not one franc
less ; no, sare. But you good judge ; you know
good carpet ; no good try to fool you. Mc let you
have this, special favour " — and so on all over again.

284 THE LAND OF VEILED WOMEN

It is a delicious experience, haggling in a Tangier
curio shop, but you want to have plenty of time.

Yet Tangier is a sad town, shine the sun never
so brightly. It is the most western of Orient towns.
But it has turned its back on the West. It looks to
the East, the fragrant, mysterious East, where Mecca
lies. It seems to feel its days as an Oriental city
are numbered.

The red flag of the Sultan of Morocco will not
always fly over the Kasbah. Once the English flag
flew over it, when Tangier came as the do^vry of a
Portuguese princess, Catherine of Braganza, on her
marriage to an English king, Charles II. There was
brave fighting in those days of old. But it was
expensive, and the time came when England had
no use for Tangier, and came away. But now Britain
and France and Germany would like to have Tangier
— it is at the gate of the Mediterranean.

I think it will be the French flag which will fly
over the Kasbah. Britain will not interfere with the
policy of France in North Western Africa, so long
as France makes no trouble about Britain's policy
in North Eastern Africa. But Germany looks on,
and scowls and growls. She cannot have Morocco,
but, if she can prevent it, neither shall France. And
this is just the political situation in a nutshell.

INDEX

Abd-el-Kader, on horse-stealing, 39
Abou-Zemaa-el-Beloni, shrine of, 217
Ain-el-Haout. fountains at. 71
Ain-Sefra. sand encroachment at,

41, 231
Aissiouas, the, 206 et seq.
Alfa grass, industry with, 112, 157,

226
Algeria, climate of North, 7; French
methods in, 12; how the French
entered. 90 1; French roads in,
107; railways in. 152; wines of,
153-4; plea for self-government
of, 165; wheat-growing in, 156;
sheep-farming in, 158; colonisa-
tion of, 159; roads in, 240
Algiers, the Days of and their
ways, 90, 146; mosques of, 93;
European, 95; experiences in,
96 ct seq.; pirates of, 146
Ahmed-Ben-Hassan, shrine of, 61
Arab invasion of North Africa, 145
Arab life and customs : women at
home. 5, 7; "meal of fate," 8;
character of women, 9; veiling
of girls, 20 ; character of natives.
34; women of the desert, 36;
water drinking : inoculation,
37; training of girls, 45; wedding
customs, 73 et seq.; home life
80-1; in the desert. 110
Artesian wells, 134
Atlas Mountains, 135

B

Barbarossa in North Africa, 146

Batna, 139

Beni-Ounif, 243. 245

Berbers, 143, 179-187. 254, 258. 260

Bey of Tunis, Palace of, 194, 196;

position of, 220
Biskra, approach to, 32; scenes in old

Biskra. 119 et feq.; European in-
i)) fluence on, 128; morality of, 130;

negro quarter in, 131

Blake, Admiral, and Tunis, 146
Blood-red Column of Kairouan, the,

216

Bordj-bou-Arr^ridj, 167-170
Bou-Medine, story of, 64; shrine of,

65; mosque of, 66
Bou-Saada, 1 et seq.; camel caravan

from, 26

Camel caravan, travelling by, 26,
32-33. 169

Camel, the, ways of, 27; supersti-
tions concerning, 39

Carpet-making at Bou-Saada. 8; by
Kabyles, 182

Carthage, story of, 143-144; remains
of, 147-151

Casablanca. 274

Cave-dwellers of Tunisia. 223

Chebka Desert, the, 25

Children at Tlemcen. 49; at Biskra,
122; in Morocco, 262

Christianity and its influence. 5, 224-5

Climate of North Algeria. 7; of
Kabylie, North Africa. 179

Colonisation of Algeria, 159; of
Tunisia. 228

Constantine. 170

Costumes, women's, at Bou-Saada, 3;
at L'aghouat, 6; of Northern
Algeria, 7; colour of, 7;
children's at Tlemcen, 50; Jewish
at Tlemcen. 56; Mohammedan
lady. 164; of Kabyle women. 180;
of Tunisian women, 189; of
Tunisian Jews, 192; of Moorish
Jews, 251

Dance, the Oriental, varieties of, by
Ouled Nail. 16-23; suKgoptiveness
in, 22, 129, 198; "Dance of the
Bee," 266

285

286

INDEX

Dancing girls, the Ouled Nail, 14
et seq.; of Fez, 266; Spanish at
Tangier, 280
Date-harvest at Tolga, 135
Date trade of Tunis, 226
Decorations in Tunis, 190-1
Desert, the, edge of, at Bou-Saada,
2; water in, 11; travellinar in,
24 et seq.; camping in, 34 ct SfQ.;
encroachment of, 40 ; by dili-
gence across. 110 et ^pq.: groat
prayer in, 123; irrigation of, 133;
well-seekers, 134
Diligence, the, in Algeria, 107
Divorce, method of. 82
Djama Kebir, Kairouan, 214
Djama Tleta Biban, Kairouan, 213
Djurdjura Mountains, 178 183
Drogue, Col. 245

EI Abid. 246

El Hamman Foukani, 248
El Kantara, 135-138
El-Maiz Faokani. 248
El-Oudaghir, 248, 249
El-Ourit, 72
Erg Desert, the, 26
Evil-eye, how to resist the, 43
Eyes of Arab women, mystery of
75; the veil and. 43. 88, 165

" Fatma hands," 44

" Feast of the Sacred Wood," 132

Fez, slavery at, 2G5

Figuig. 231, 243 et seq.

Plies, pest of, 10, 28. 112

Foreign Legion, experiences of
officer of, 171-174; composition
and life of. 231 et seq.; in
Morocco, 244

France and North Africa: distribu-
tion of decorations to Arabs, 12
influence on nomad tribes, 40
how Algiers was occupied, 90-93
road-making, 107; artesian wells
134; and the Dey of Algiers. 147
" Protectorate" over Tunis. 147
Government of Tunisia, 220
et seq.; in Morocco, 243

French soldiers, at Bou-Saada, 12;
in Algiers, 90; native levies. 157;
experiences of officer of Foreign
Legion, 171; the Foreign Legion,
231 »t seq.; in Morocco. 243

Gaci Desert, the, 26

Gafsa. 226

" Garden of Allah, The," 128

Girlhood, in North Africa. 6;

Mohammedan. 20, 44-6; talismans
of, 77; training and treatment
of, 89, 161-167; in Tunis, 189

Gold ornaments, as women's posses-
sions, 3

Goldsmith's work at Bou-Saada, 3
Grand Hotel du Sahara, Beni-Ounif,

243

Grand mosque at Tlemcen, 58
Great mosque at Kairouan. 214

H

Hammedan Desert, the. 26, 86
Hichens. Mr., and Biskra, 128
Hotel de France, Tlemcen, 55

Irrigation, schemes for. 133

Jewellery, of Moslem women 3- of
Ouled Nail girls, 17; of Jewish
women, 18; of children at
Tlemcen, 52; of Kabyle women.
180 : of Jewish women at El-
Oudaghir, 251

Jews, of Bou-Saada, 3; women and
jewellery, 18; at Tlemcen 56; in
relation to French, 159; influence
of. 160; women of Tunis, 189; in
Tunis, 192, 228; of El-Ouda°-iiir
251 ; in Morocco. 263, 276

K

Kabyles, the, home and character of

178 et seq.
Kairouan, 206 et seq.
Kohl, use of. 4, 7. 165, 200, 251
Kous-kous, 8, 24. 31, 32, 81, 131. 189

Lambaesia. ruins of, 141
Lambessa, 140

Lavigerie, Cardinal, 149, 224
Light, beauty of. 1

,i

INDEX

287

M

Mansourah, founding and destruc-
tion of. 68-69; ruina of, 70

Maratout, at Bou-Saada, 11; the
Ouled Nail dancing girls, as, 15;
tomb of a. 114; of Kairouan, 218

Market, sheep, at Bou-Saada, 10; at
Tlemcen, 71; at Algiers. 87;
souks of Tunis, 191 et seq.; of
Strangers at Kairouan, 212;
slave, at Fez, 265; at Tangier,
277

Marriage customs : Mohammedan, 6.
120; wedding at Tlemcen, 73; of
the Kabyles, 179; in Tunis. 189;
of Tunisian Jews, 229

Mauretania. Roman colony of, 140

" Meal of Fate," 8

Mecca and its wonder-works, 38

Medenine, 223

Melilla, 255

Mohammedan customs : Marahout,
11, 15; food of desert tribes, 36;
prayers, 41; girls and marriage,
46; wedding customs, 73 et seg.;
polygamy, 78; in Ramadan, 84
et seq.; end of Ramadan, 116 et
aeq.; mourning, 206

Mohammed, and women, 82; and
children, 122; on prayer, 123, 126

Mohammedans, sincerity of. 92

Moorish archit-ecture at Tlemcen,
58; at Kairouan, 212. 214

Moors, the rise and fall of, 255;
character of, 257; and civilisa-
tion, 271

Morocco, the French in, 243; in-
terior of. 243 et seq.; position in
to-day, 254 et seq.

Moslem women: of Bou-Saada. 3;
veiling customs, 4, 20; home-life,
5; tattoo customs, 5; character
of, 9; the desert tribes, 36; and
sexual relationships, 45; training
and influence of, 77-8; home-life.
80; compared with Christian. 82;
at home, 162-167; Kabyle women,
180; of Tunis. 188-9

Mosque, grand, at Tlemcen, 58; at
Bou-Medine, 66; at Mansourah,
70; of Three Doora, Kairouan,
213; Great, at Kairouan, 214; of
the Barber, Kairouan. 217; of the
Swords, Kairouan, 218

Mosques at Tlemcen, 58; in Rama-
dan, 93; at Kairouan, 211, 214.
217

Moulay Mohammed, cruelty of, 264

M'ozabites. the, 85

Mus^e Alaoui, 150

Music, Oriental. 15; Arab, in the
desert, 35

Mulai Hafld, character of. 267

N

Native troopa in Algeria, 157; in

Morocco, 244
Negroes in Biskra. 131

Nomad tribes, life and customs of,

34 et seq.

Oasis, beauties of, 31. 133. 246
Oucd, the, at Bou-Saada. 11
Oulcd Nail, the, dancing girls of, 14
et seq.; street of. Biskra, 129

Palm-tree, the, as shade in the

desert, 11. 13
Perfumes, sale of, in Tunis, 199
Phoenicia and North Africa, 143, 148
Pirates of Tunis. 197; of Morocco.

256
Polygamy, 78
Pomaria, 53
Postal service in Morocco, 270-1

Railways in Morocco, Tunis, and

South Algeria. 152. 157. 158. 161.

169
Ramadan, food in the desert in, 31;

in Algiers, 84 et seq.; end of, 118

et seq.
Roads in Algeria, 107, 240
Roman remains at Timgad. 141
Rome and North Africa, 144
lioumi, origin of word, 145
Rue de la Kasbah, Tunis, 193

S

Sahara, the. women of, 7; travelling
in, 24 et seq.: camping in. 34 et
seq.; the Oued-Iiir, 134; railway
across, 136-7

Saida, 231, 232

St. Louis, Cathedral of, 149

Sand-diviner. 174-177

Sfax, 224, 226

Sheep-farming in Algeria, 158

Sheep, method of herding and selling
at Bou-Saada, 10; and the nomad
tribes, 39

Sidi Abib. shrine of. at Kairouan.
217

Sidi Amor Abada, story of, 218-9

288

INDEX

Sidi Bcl-Abbis, 234

Sidi-el-Haloui, story of. and mosque

of, at Tlemcen, 47 et seq.
Sidi Okba, tomb of, 133; founder of

Kaii'ouan, 211
Slave market at Fez. 265-7
Slavery in South Algeria, 78; in

Algiers, 90
Slave traffic, horrors of. 79
Sceura Blanches. Lea. 225
Souk dea Pemmes, Tunis, 193
Souk-el-Attarine, Tunis, 199 et seq.
Souk-et-Trout. Tunis, 193
Souk Sekajine, Tunis. 193
Sousse, 226

Spain and Morocco, 255
Story-teller at Bou-Saada. 10
Sunset at Tlemcen, 73
Superstitions. Arab. 40-1, 79

Tahtani, 248

Tangier, 269 et seq.

Taourit Beni Menguellet, 178

Tattoo marks on women's faces. 5, 6

Tiles, Moorish, at Tlemcen, 59, 62; at

Bou Medine, 66; at Kairouan,

212
Timgad (Thamugadi). 141
Tlemcen, 47 et seq.; wedding scenes

at, 73
Tolga. oasis of, 31, 132; date harvest

at, 135
Touaregs, the, 38
Tunis, scenes in, 185 et seq.: Bey of,

220

Tunisia, French " Protectorate" over,
147; railways in, 152; French
methods in, 220 et seq.- cave-
dwellers of, 223; trade in, 226-7;
Jews in, 228

U

Utica (Bou Ohater), 145

Veil, the, and its use among Moslem
women. 4, 6, 20, 43, 88, 165, 189. 213
Vendetta among the Kabyles. 185

W

Water-seller at Bou-Saada, II

29

Water supply in the desert.

Well-seekers, 134

Wheat-growing in Algeria, 156; in
Morocco, 139

" White Fathers," the. 224-5

Wines of Algeria, 153

Women, of Bou-Saada, 3, 5; veiling
customs. 4, 20; tattoo custom. 5;
of the desert. 36; and love. 44;
training and influence of, 77-8; at
home, 162-167; Kabyle, 180; of
Tunis, 188-9; of Kairouan, 213:
Jewish, of Tunisia, 229; Jewish, of
El-Oudaghir. 251; in Morocco.
260-1; of Fez. 267

Zenaga, 248, 252
1 Zleman, 248

Printed by Cassbll & Company, Limited, La Bellb Sauvage, London, E.C.

^^^

if'

DT
190
F7
1913

Fraser, (Sir) John Foster

The land of veiled
women

PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY